A/N: I know! A brief-ish chapter from me? Whodda thunkit? But I figured we could all use a break on the lighter-tone and shorter side. Also, I meant to clarify this sooner, but yes, the cleric coming is the same man who will marry Anakin and Padme.
Chapter 15. The Holy Man
If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be;
and if all else remained, and he were annihilated,
the universe would turn to a mighty stranger.
- Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights
Over the course of our history, Anakin and I created many memorable evenings in the formal dining room of Varykino. As you've already witnessed, it's where we had what may not have been our first, but what was certainly our most heated "fight" yet. During our honeymoon at the villa, we purposely returned to that dining room for a very spirited and belated "make up"—in the manner, shall we say, which two passionate newlyweds might. Basically, although the table was utilized, we didn't eat any food.
There was also the fateful dinner that led into our conversation by the fireplace alcove— a memory neither of us really cared to revisit, even after we were married. But that didn't stop my husband from asking me to don the same black, corset dress I wore that night for a long time after. It's funny how even though Anakin saw me in the outfit— synthetic leather gloves and all— multiple times during our marriage, I never seemed to stay in it very long after he did. Although I secretly only ever brought the subject up teasingly, he was vehemently against any mention of me filtering it out of my closet. Even years later, when my belly was stretched by the life inside it and I warned him I might never fit into the constricting dress again, he was adamant that it stay in my possession for post-pregnancy days— just in case.
These and many more meals aside, I have to boringly inform you that the first real dinner Anakin and I ever sat down for at Varykino was quite unremarkable. A repeatedly mentioned point in my unloading struck a relatable chord with my traveling companion of the past two days— exhaustion. Although our swimming in the lake had been fun at both bookends of, it zapped us of what remaining energy we had left. Waking up on the Jendirian Valley felt like a lifetime ago, as did the meeting with the queen and lunch with my family. Even Anakin put the intense looks and flirtations on pause in an effort to keep his head from falling into his plate. He was so tired that, though he would never admit to it— especially after the ardent oath he'd made in that very room earlier in the day— if an assassin suddenly appeared in the doorway, Anakin was just as likely to mistakenly grab a spoon as grab his saber. Either way, whatever defensive object was reached for was destined to be thrown limply from his seat.
And so, we ate in a subdued but comfortable silence, occasionally talking if we felt the need for it. The only element which matched our exhaustion was Anakin's reliable appetite. I've never seen a man go through so many shaak ribs. We'd been living off soup and mush on the freighter, so after leaving the beach, I had the sense of mind to remember his lack of enthusiasm for our prior meal and asked Nandi and Teckla to serve anything but fish, at least for our first night. In between bites, the only thing he mumbled and indeed repeated with any real energy throughout the dinner were near tearful refrains of "Thank you, thank you."
I was grateful for Anakin's apparent distraction by hunger and fatigue. I didn't have the willpower to muster up chitchat, nor any desire to revisit the emotional outpouring on the beach. I was still a bit shocked that I'd revealed so much of myself to him. Regardless, I was in a physically and mentally depleted state, too. I didn't know if my legs felt heavy from my exertion in the water or from walking across half of Theed in heels— likely both. My arms were dead, and it was taking everything in me to keep my eyes open. But watching Anakin drop his usually statuesque veneer to succumb to the mercy of food was as amusing as it was, well, cute.
After leaving the dining room, we departed at the top of the stairs of the atrium for the hallways that would take us to our respective rooms. As exhausted as we were, the parting felt unusually abbreviated, and even though I knew both of us were longing to crawl into our beds, I walked away feeling somewhat bereft.
That being said, when I shut the door to my room and leaned back against it, I expected to feel a rush of relief. It wasn't the very first time I'd been alone that day— it wasn't even the first time I'd been alone in that very bedroom— but as much of a whirlwind as the very long day had been, I was used to Anakin being around. I didn't particularly miss him in that moment, but I wasn't glad his presence would be absent for the next seven or eight hours either, even if I might be spending those hours in sleep.
I can honestly say I did try to fall asleep. However, the thoughts and emotions that assailed me over the past few days and which broke through the surface on the beach had finally been acknowledged, but they hadn't necessarily been dealt with. In the silent solitude of my bed, I tossed and turned as my mind refused to comply with the wishes of my poor, worn out body. At one point, I made the mistake of looking at a clock and doing the mental math of time differences to realize the senate was currently in active session on Coruscant. I was sitting up and reaching for a data screen before Artoo could even turn off the motion detectors floating above the floor— thank goodness the tablet was only on the nightstand.
Tired but determined eyes scanned the political sub-sections of the HoloNet for updates. Frustrated that some articles dared to be as much as fifteen minutes old, I switched to the live stream of the happenings inside the senate chamber itself. The assembly had adjourned for a thirty-minute break, and in the interim, the streaming channel was replaying Senator Organa's speech given in the hour before. Watching it, I was satisfied and impressed with a number of points my colleague made, but there were elements I wished he would've pressed on even more. I stopped myself from sending a praising yet constructive message to Bail. If we hadn't been successful in our ruse that I was still on-planet, any amateur bounty hunter would think to hack the messages of my closest allies to check for correspondences, especially ones transmitted from Naboo. Watching the general, publicly available political going-ons from Varykino on a non-encrypted tablet was one thing, but sending any message directly to my esteemed counterparts was to risk their recipients being turned into bait.
This wasn't some absurd fear— I had firsthand experience with the tactic being used on me before. It had been ten years, but I still vividly remembered the pained look on Sio Bibble's face during the invasion. He'd sent a transmission to the royal cruiser, begging me to contact him— a gut-wrenching trap. Nute Gunray was counting on my heart strings overriding Amidala's protocol and outing my own whereabouts. I couldn't avoid such involvements then, but I would do all I could not ensnare Bail Organa or anyone else in my danger this time. But what was equally worse— if whoever was behind the attacks well and truly thought I was out of the way despite my continued pulse, the Senator of Alderaan was likely to become the new target.
Please, hurry, Obi-Wan Kenobi. You're our only hope.
I did a quick check to see if there had been any contributions from the Nubian delegation. As the acting top representative of Naboo, Jar Jar hadn't given any speeches yet… which wasn't necessarily a terrible thing. He didn't have the greatest track record at public speaking, and he'd only ventured up to speak at the podium in the Senate Rotunda once before. It ended swiftly if not smoothly, after he'd looked down and immediately become alarmed at the steep height from the hovering pod. To no avail, I'd later encouraged him numerous times to try again, advising that if he just made sure to look up and not down, there was perhaps a great orator in him waiting to come out.
I waited until the assembly resumed the session before I admitted to myself what I'd already suspected from other context clues— the ultimate pass/fail of the MCA was not going to be decided today. This was disconcerting. If Chancellor Palpatine thought we had enough "No" votes to stop the Military Creation Act, he would've brought it to a vote by now. Every day that the senate, and thereby the republic, failed to show the separatists that we were not going to use violence to resolve the crisis was another day they strengthened their alliances in case we did. How could rational diplomacy make progress at the negotiation table with the unsettled threat of a galactic army looming over it?
There was one relief in all my bleary-eyed searching and watching of political actors that night. There was no recent news of any tragedy befalling "Senator Amidala".
Dormé and Captain Typho were still alive.
Chestnut pupils danced in front of my face. Instead of being encased in the natural white of a human eye, they were staring me down amongst a sea of angry, ashy gray.
"I failed you, milady. But how could you forget me so quickly?"
Lips tainted red by blood instead of cosmetics turned down at me. I was muted, helpless to issue my apology. It was as if there was a hand around my mouth. I could barely reach for air. I tried to walk but clumsily stumbled. I looked down at my feet and saw I was standing on an unfathomable pile of obliterated, gray shoes.
Her voice, so sweet in life, spurned me just as much as it wailed and mourned for me and my own fate.
"You will not know happiness, Padmé Amidala."
I sat up in bed with a frantic start. I was panting, and I placed a hand over the center of my chest as if I could slow the thunder happening beneath my ribs by touch. There were beads of sweat on my damp forehead.
Artoo beeped at me from the corner warily. I lifted the hand trying to placate my heart and waved it in weak dismissal. "I'm alright, Artoo. It was just a bad dream."
I caught the data tablet in my other hand; I'd fallen asleep with it on my chest, and it was slipping further down my torso with every shuddering breath I took. It was a wonder I hadn't launched it across the room when I sat up so suddenly.
I sunk my head into my hands and concentrated on my breath.
"Oh, Cordé," I whispered, the words a prayer, a plea, and an apology all wrapped in one shaky utterance.
When the sound of my breathing and my heart no longer pounded in my ears, my ears perked up at the barely perceptible sound of a boot skidding on tile. What was even more odd was the direction it came from— through the door on my right leading out to a veranda, not from the hallway tile beyond the bedroom door on my left. This was the open entry draped by long, white curtains that led to a shared terrace between my room and a guest bedroom on the other side.
The Nubian guardsmen were scattered throughout the villa's property, and as far as I knew, none were stationed on the terrace. Paddy slept in the groundskeepers dwelling, whereas Nandi and Teckla were set to return to the village after cleaning up dinner before they returned in the morning to prepare breakfast.
As I sat up in bed straining my ears for the most minute of sound, I started to believe I might've imagined the noise. But there! Again, the audible hint of movement coming from beyond the curtains. I signaled to Artoo to disable the motion detectors on the floor and crept from my bed.
I grabbed the plush blue robe hanging on the back of a chair and draped it around my nightgown. I'd chosen a purple, modest nightdress that was conservative enough while staying youthful and feminine. Anakin had already barged into my room without notice once before to stop an attack—I wanted to be ready in case it happened again. It was mystifying to me that I'd consciously weighed Anakin seeing me in it more than I'd seemed to care that if he did, it meant we were under siege.
None of this was on my mind as I peeked through the floating curtains, anticipating seeing a creeping assassin. It was dark, but when I faintly saw the tall, dark blond figure standing by one of the pillars outside, I frowned in confusion.
Before I called out to him, my eyes took the languished time to absorb his night-cloaked form. There are two robust pillars on the veranda: twin stone trees supporting the high ceiling above. Nature had stubbornly and beautifully wrung thick vines around the columns from top to bottom, making them more green than the pink-hued rock they were birthed in; with the intertwining foliage, I could barely make them out in the dark. Anakin was leaning on the left side of the pillar furthest from my doorway, his shoulder supporting him as his chest faced forward towards the lake beyond. I don't think even his Jedi sight could distinguish the waterline at this time of night, but from what I could make out from his profile, he looked solemn and calm. He was dressed in his uniform boots and pants, though he only wore his lightest tunic again across his arms and torso. His lightsaber hung on the utility belt around his waist. Its polished silver was the clearest thing I could see in the dark.
I took a step through the drapery separating us. "Anakin?"
Completely opposite to when I surprised him by the boat dock, his head moved casually in my direction, as if he'd already known I was there, watching him.
A timid smile stretched one cheek. "I couldn't sleep."
I pulled the robe closer around my chest— I wasn't fully comfortable around him yet, mind you, and his eyes had a good two feet of height on my cleavage, however minor it was— and walked out to him. My bare feet slowly padded across the glossy floor with soft-sounding pats.
I came to a stop by the other pillar and leaned against it, mirroring his own position. Although the rest of our bodies faced the lake, our actual faces were fixed on each other. "I thought you were an assassin."
"No," he assuaged. "It's only me."
My voice was quiet, out of respect for the night. The low concert of nocturnal insects were having their scheduled performance, and there was an intimacy to our air that I didn't want to speak above. "You're in the room on the other side from mine? Across this veranda?"
He nodded. "I told them to put me in the bedroom with the easiest access to yours."
There were five bedrooms at Varykino scattered throughout the villa. I hadn't expected him to be so… close. I can't rationally explain why I thought this— he was the dedicated bodyguard tasked with my protection. For the role, it made sense. But knowing now that Anakin— the attractive and attentive young man— would be sleeping only few steps across a private terrace exclusive to these two rooms was… something different.
It didn't help that the sensual woman inside me, who'd awoken over the past few days and had no desire to entertain rationality, heard his answer and ravenously applauded.
I hurriedly tried to smother her in the guise of being an amiable hostess. "Is the room to your liking?"
He grinned. I thought it was a gripping sight in the light of the sun, but there was a hypnotizing aspect to it in the shadow of night. "Do you remember when I said that corner alcove on the freighter was a palace compared to what I'm used to?"
"I do."
"This is far better."
I smiled back. "I'm glad. When you said you couldn't sleep, I worried the bed wasn't comfortable."
His grin faltered and his eyes looked back out at the water. Inexplicably, he looked sad. "Not at all. I just don't sleep very well these days." After a beat, he straightened his back and his mood shifted. He was both more animated yet just as serious. "Besides, I've not so soon forgotten the Kouhuns."
I grimaced. "Neither have I."
He nodded at my expression, as if I'd already agreed with the reasoning he was about to provide. "I only got to you in time because I was already awake and on guard. I'm hesitant to let my body yield to deep sleep for too long."
Such a warrior. Even surrendering to something as natural as sleep was considered a lost duel.
But I was sorry to hear he wouldn't get proper rest for my sake. "The security guards are patrolling the grounds. Surely you can feel comfortable enough to sleep when they're here?"
He smiled at me just a tad patronizingly. "Not quite the same thing, milady."
I rose an eyebrow but dropped the subject. Only somewhat hesitantly, I ventured, "Do you remember when I said I'd invited the local holy man to dine with us tomorrow?"
"Yes, I do." His face was smooth.
"Nandi stopped by my room earlier, before she and Teckla left. She let me know he has prior engagements later tomorrow, but he will be joining us for breakfast."
"He didn't simply want to reschedule for another day?"
I shrugged innocently. "For all we know, we'll get a message from Obi-Wan and be on our way back to Coruscant by tomorrow afternoon. I would like to see the brother while I'm here, if we can."
"The Azeloo Brotherhood, did you say?" I nodded. He gave a small bow, as if the cleric were standing with us. "I look forward to meeting him."
"I've known him for many years. He's been the local cleric since I was a child."
"Will I hear more famous Mémé stories then?"
I shook my head but smiled. I lifted my weight off the pillar where it had nestled itself amongst the soft vines and turned to go inside. "Get some good sleep, Ani. I won't have my security falling asleep at the table in front of guests."
A small chuckle caressed my ears as I walked away. "Good night, Padmé."
"Good night, Ani."
The next morning, I awoke feeling groggy and ill-rested. While Cordé had not visited my dreams again after my encounter with Anakin on the veranda, the elusive deep sleep that my companion shunned wanted nothing to do with me, however greedy I was for its company.
My spirits rose some when I remembered who was joining our table for breakfast. After making myself presentable I rendezvoused with Anakin in the atrium on the lower floor. He had found sleep after our exchange on the terrace, but he, too, looked like it hadn't been his best attempt.
Within an hour, we were alerted by Captain Ardimon that a comm request had come for a ferry ride on the nearby eastern shore of the lake. Our guest had arrived on the bank in his land speeder, and he needed one of our water ones to taxi him across to finish his journey. As they'd been kept informed of the situation, a guardsman was already en route to pick him up.
Anakin and I abandoned our leisurely walk through the gardens and went to meet the elderly man at the boat dock. At the sight of him serenely beaming at the rear of the small vessel, a wide smile stretched across my face. His own was more grizzled and wrinkled than I remembered it, but whose isn't touched by time? I was surprised to see he had his maroon, formal robes on, a look finished by the purple head cap that trailed from his ears down to his lower torso in two splits.
He started waving at me as he and the guardsman steering the speeder sailed through the narrow jetty. Reflexively, my eyes darted to the tops of the walls on either side. Anakin's warning about how the space could be a death pit were too fresh in my ears to forget, even on such a sunny morning.
"Padmé, my dear!" The voice, low and crinkled by age but forever youthful in flavor, called out to me as the speeder was safely attached to the dock by Anakin. Although I'm sure Ani would have done it himself if I've given him half a second more to do so, I myself went forward to assist our guest out of the boat.
I took his hand and carefully helped him up the ancient steps. Anakin was by our side in a moment.
"I feel undressed," I lamented, though with a welcoming smile. I was dressed in fairly suitable attire for a grownup woman meeting with her old friend and spiritual leader of the area, but I knew what he was wearing was only donned for special occasions, usually ceremonial in nature. "But I'm so happy you're here."
"Nah, nah, my dear," he waved away my comments with a pale hand. We stood facing each other on the landing. "I am merely dressed for the commitment I am attending to after my visit with you. But I am very glad to be here first."
After we bowed at each other— in the one and last deference to our respective public roles— he put his hands on my shoulders, then suddenly studied me from head to toe. "You're taller than you were the last time I saw you."
I laughed and smirked at his poorly masked, teasing expression. "No, I'm not, and you know it."
He winked at me, ever the jester, despite his solemn vows. Then he turned to the man at my side. "And who might this be? Has our Mémé finally listened to the muses of romance?"
I blushed red and sighed. "You're worse than Sola." The words escaped my mouth before I could stop them, and at my pronouncement, Anakin's eyebrows rose with evident pleasing. I avoided his eye.
With a dazzling smile on his face, he leaned forward and extended a hand in greeting. "Hello. I'm Anakin Skywalker of the Jedi Order."
"Hello, Anakin." The other man took the offered hand with a warm smile. "I'm the Pontifex of the High Order of the Azeloo Brotherhood of Cognizance." He winked. "But you can just call me Brother Luke."
A/N:
YAAAAS I JUST DID THAT. I did debate it for a while- I kept asking myself, "Are you really gonna go there?", especially because both canons give him a name (albeit different ones and different backstories). But it's not said in the movie, nor the end credits, and he's only named as 'NABOO HOLY MAN' in the script. More to the point- once I thought about the possible moment post-ANH when Vader not only finds out he has a child, but a son named Luke, and all the weight that name could have and why, I thought about the cracks in Vader's hold over Anakin that would splinter even more. Him realizing that Padmé named their son after the man who married them, following through even after he Force-choked her? Well hand me a sword to stab myself in the heart with because I couldn't not do it.
Dear regular reviewers: You are the stars in my galaxy. I see every one of you and am very grateful.
Dear lurking readers: I would really love to hear from you, too. :)
