Epilogue
It's hard to imagine something as different from what Shmi expected out of life as Dialka Ti Skywalker.
To any outsider, she is far more obviously Shaak's daughter than hers. She has the lekku and a skin color no pure human does, and she's clearly gifted with the Force.
But Shmi has to contain her laughter when anyone says something along the lines, and Shaak, controlled as she is, guffaws every time.
Because the first thing Dialka put her mind effort to was to reproduce an old lullaby from Tatooine that Shmi sang to her in her cradle.
Because after Dialka's fourth birthday party, Shaak had to recluse herself from participating in her active playing. Dialka developed a fascination with tropical fish, so all the younglings came dressed as different species. And then Anakin gave his baby sister the thrill of her life by picking them all up with the Force at once and making the party hall an emulation of an aquarium. Except that put Shaak in the grips of a fear she was unable to control and keep Dialka from sensing it. Frustrated and ashamed, though nobody blamed her, for years after that, Shaak avoided joining her daughter's physical playtime, leaving that to Shmi.
And Dialka, like Anakin, proved to be a very active child.
Because when Mace Windu picks out Dialka as his Padawan, that relationship has a very rocky start. It is Shmi that Dialka seeks out, and it is Shmi, with the tough life experience she'd had, who reconciles them-for Shmi knows the difference between sternness and cruelty, between malice and ignorance, far better than either Shaak or Mace do-and also better than a teenage mind that exaggerates everything coming her way. And after her intervention, the Windu-Skywalker team ends up just famous-or infamous-as the Kenobi-Skywalker one.
Shmi exits the turbolift and heads to her apartment door. A security droid hovers nearby, but after a quick scan, moves out of the way to let her pass.
There's a special rack of hooks on their wall just next to front door. On Tatooine, most would assume it's for keys, though the hooks themselves are rather big for that. But on Coruscant, almost no one uses actual, physical keys and locks.
The rack is for lightsabers. Shmi is an organized person, never prone to leaving things around-and while she can't do much about everyone else in her family routinely carrying deadly weapons, she draws the line at them doing so in the home. Both Anakin and Dialka wanted to when they made their first lightsabers, and Shaak laughed before firmly siding with her. "If a meal is dangerous enough to need a lightsaber, it's too dangerous to eat," she told the children.
"Good to see that some things are universal," she tells Shmi later that night.
"You wanted to bring your lightsaber everywhere?"
"When I first got it, yes. Every youngling I know did. Master Yaddle set me straight."
There are three lightsabers hanging on the rack now. The smooth silvery metal handle belonging to her wife, Anakin's with a ribbed black hind grip, and Dialka's thin cylinder made of alternating plates of wood and gold. The wood comes from Shili, the gold a portion of a Hutt's treasure Anakin and Obi-Wan seized when taking down a crime cartel. The rest had been used to free slaves on Tatooine and other Hutt-controlled worlds. Unlike on the other two, the switch is concealed, leaving the design uninterrupted.
So the entire family is here. She puts away her outer clothes and heads inside. In addition to her wife and children, there's a fifth person sitting at the table. Senator Amidala. That explains the security droid outside.
Shaak rises and gives Shmi a kiss. "Hi, Mom," Anakin says. Dialka simply waves.
"I can guess what this is about," she tells them as she sits down and scans the table. "Uh-huh. Roasted skreeb, really? Did Dex finally part with the recipe, or are we foregoing the entertainment budget for the next two months?"
Dialka grins. "Neither. It's from Dex, but I paid him in an unconventional way."
Anakin sighs. "She's been refusing to tell us what she did."
"You first," Dialka retorts.
"Yes, Mom-sis, Master Ti. I asked Padmé to marry me."
"And I said yes," Amidala follows up.
A round of congratulatory exchange follows. "I guessed when you asked us all to be here," Dialka says. "So I went to Dex's and arranged for this to celebrate," she points at the table. "I think I haggled him down pretty well. Paid only for the ingredients, so we can keep the Holonet, mom."
"And what else?" Shaak says curiously.
"Dex is going to officiate the wedding."
"Seriously?"
"Most of the skreeb cost is the ingredients," Padmé says. "Specifically, the skreeb itself."
"Yeah, well, Master Mace and I had a mission a few weeks back that took us to the Corporate Sector. Lots of smuggled stuff-including skreebs frozen in carbonite. We had to hide that from the Espos."
"Why?" Shmi asks.
"You know skreebs are only raised on Sovaxi," Dialka informs.
"'Raised' is stretching," Shaak corrects. "They don't do well in captivity. Sovaxians simply preserve the wetlands and sell hunting permits."
"And punish anyone who hunts without a permit, or attempts to take them away live, with death. Smuggling in the CS isn't a capital sentence, but if the opportunity arises to execute someone on another world's behalf, the Espos usually take it. Master Windu and I weren't going to hand the smugglers over to be killed. So, we used mind-tricks when the stash was inspected, and took the skreebs back with us. There's a couple more left over for special occasions. I thought this warranted it."
"So you decided Dex would be the officiant-solely to avoid paying him the labor cost?" Anakin says incredulously.
"You know both he and Obi-Wan will be heartbroken if you renege now."
Anakin meets Padmé's eyes. "Well... as long as you didn't offer to make his diner the venue."
A few hours later, Anakin and Padmé have departed back to the much more spacious loft at 500 Republica. Dialka is still in the living room, going back and forth between two datapads, someting Artoo is explaining, and a hologram of Masters Windu and Yoda. They all quiet down as she walks by on her way to the bedroom.
"Goodnight, sweetheart."
"Night, mom."
Shaak is already in bed. No hair does make for a somewhat easier hygenic routine, though with Dialka, that's more than compensated for with the moltings her montrals go through regularly. "My last one was at twenty-eight," Shaak says absentmindedly.
"Sometimes things go the way you expect."
"What do you mean?"
"Anakin and Padmé. We all thought it would happen eventually."
"Or rather, it happened the day you all met."
"Maybe. Just... you, the Jedi, Dialka... not much in my life went the way I expected."
"Would you switch places to where it had?"
Shmi pulls Shaak in for a kiss. "Never."