Satine and Obi-Wan looked the happiest they'd ever been as their friends and family all came bearing gifts for Baby Olivia.
Chancellor Organa was among the distinguished guests.
"Allow me to wish you my congratulations on Princess Olivia's safe and healthy birth." Bail said. "And what a beautiful girl she is."
Bail smiled at the baby as she looked curiously at him, gripping his finger.
Korkie held his new baby cousin as she lay wide awake, her eyes matching her mother's. Everyone went all gaga over the new baby girl.
"Cootchie, cootchie, cootchie." Comedia cooed, flailing her tongue around in an effort to make the baby laugh.
Olivia just stared at her with wide eyes, sucking on her pacifier.
"Wow. Tough crowd, aren't you?" Comedia said.
"She is just a baby, after all." Ki-Adi said, unable to keep from smiling as he tickled the child. "A very beautiful baby at that."
Olivia seemed like a pretty quiet baby too. Every time someone came up to meet her, she just stared up at them with wide eyes.
Anakin and Padme came up with their baby twins to introduce them to Olivia.
"Luke, Leia." Padme said. "This is your godsister Olivia."
"Olivia, meet your new friends." Korkie said, holding Olivia up so she could get a better look at the older babies. "Luke and Leia. They're babies just like you."
Luke and Leia both looked very curiously at the new baby before them. Leia babbled as though saying 'hello,' and Luke just cooed.
"Can I hold her?" Lamenta asked the new parents.
"Just be very careful." said Satine.
Korkie carefully passed Olivia into Lamenta's arms. The night princess smiled at the little bundle of joy in her arms, the little one once again having wide eyes of wonder.
But... Olivia started crying and getting fussy.
"Um, Obi-Wan? Satine?" Lamenta said worriedly.
Olivia just cried louder even as her mother took her into her arms.
"It's okay now, Olivia. Shh. Shh. Shh." Satine soothed.
"She doesn't like me." Lamenta looked down and stepped away.
"Now, now, Lamenta. That's not true." Obi-Wan said. "She's just tired."
Lamenta wasn't sure she believed that though. To put it simply, she was not quite as popular as her cousin Gabby, nor as lucky to have a large number of people in her life for the first three years of her life. Having spent three years always on the move, she never had any real friends. Her mother was an only child and back then they thought Carmine was an only child too, and neither of them had any other family (that they were aware of), and even when Carmine and Lamenta joined the Order, Lamenta was still very shy as well as mistrusting of others. I mean, would you find it easy to trust people after people have tried to take advantage of you literally all your life?
When Gabby held Olivia, the baby didn't cry at all. Even though she was technically still a little kid herself, Gabby was found to really have a way with babies. This made Lamenta wonder... would her new baby brother or sister react to her the same way Olivia had?
What if the new baby didn't like her? What if her parents liked the new baby more than her? What if she became totally invisible to the rest of the family once the new baby came?
Back at the Naboo Palace sometime later, Caroline was humming to herself as she looked through the box of Lamenta's old baby things. In eight months, she and Carmine would be blessed with another miracle of life of their own. However, this time around, they would not be struggling to take care of her or him. Now that they lived in a palace with a bigger family and they had more than enough money from their days of musical tours and gigs, they would be able to provide for both Lamenta and their new baby.
"It seems like only yesterday, doesn't it?" said Carmine. "One moment, we were teenage parents forced to make it on our own, just barely managing to make ends meet."
"I remember." said Caroline. "You worked literally three jobs to be able to provide for us, but paid a price of no rest and barely any family time. And then along came Count Crescendo, and then the Festival of Light."
The Jinn family had certainly come a long way since the beginning. A family that once grew with three children in separate homes finally together now, the two youngest ones now each blessed with children of their own to love and raise into fine adults who may have children of their own someday, not only giving Solaris new heirs for the future, but continuing the growth of their family, the greatest crown jewel of them all.
Now, even the Jedi were having children of their own or adopting children. Some were even making up for lost time with children they didn't even know existed for years.
Mace Windu had his daughter Myra and stepson Kade, Ki-Adi had Comedia, Plo Koon and Shaak Tii had Ahsoka and now were looking into adopting a child, Kara loved Diamond as though she were her child, Kit Fisto and Aayla Secura started trying to have a baby, and now Obi-Wan Kenobi had a baby girl of his own. So, it seemed the Jedi's Order's family was growing now too, and it would continue for years to come.
Goldie shook a little rattle for Leia as she and Luke were playing about in their pen.
"I wish I had a baby sister." Goldie said.
"Or a brother?" Boba asked, walking by.
"My neighbor back home says baby brothers are annoying."
"Baby sisters can be that too. I tried not to show it, but I had to really watch my back when I first moved in with Gabby. Tigger Tag was her favorite game then."
"What's Tigger Tag again?" said Goldie.
"Whoa!" Boba fell forward as Gabby tackled him to the floor.
"Gotcha again." Gabby teased.
"That's Tigger Tag." Boba groaned, trying to get up. "You know you're gonna be too big and heavy to use me as a target eventually, right?"
"Why do you think I do it so much now? Gotta practice if ever I need to tackle a bad guy."
"You're going down when I get up!" Boba grunted, trying to get his sister off his back.
"You'll have to catch me first!"
And Gabby ran off, Boba coming after her, the two of them zipping past Padme and Mariposa.
"Kids, be careful!" Padme said.
"Were they always like this?" Mariposa asked. "Roughhousing?"
"Boba and Gabby have been close for as long as I can remember. Even when Ani and I had just the two of them, raising a family was no easy task on top of our other jobs."
"In my people's tribe, looking after just a garden is like looking after at least two dozen children because each flower requires the same amount of attention, even if they come from the same kind of seed. A sunflower and a rose are two different flowers, but nevertheless require the same amount of love in order to grow."
"You have a much deeper understanding of flowers and helping things grow than I do." Padme said.
"I don't know about that. But I am proud of how my daughter has turned out so far." And then she had an idea. "You want to see her baby album?"
"Aww!" Padme and Caroline couldn't help but smile as Mariposa showed them some old pictures of Goldie when she was a tiny baby.
"Goldie was such a cute baby." Caroline said.
"Garrett and I have so many great memories with our little caterpillar." Mariposa sighed.
She showed them one of her favorite photos. It was a little picture of Goldie when she was maybe one year old, and she had mud all over her little hands as she was patting the ground around a little flower. That was the day Goldie first learned to plant a flower and play in the mud.
"She still can't seem to play in any garden or park without coming in muddy." Mariposa said.
"Gabby's the opposite." Padme said. "She hates mud. Especially after the incident with a dress my mother gave her. You should've seen when she was a baby."
As it just so happened, Padme and the other grownups had an entire box with everyone's baby albums in it, and she took out Gabby's.
"Aww, how adorable!" Mariposa said, looking at Gabby's baby picture.
Gabby had lots of adorable pictures, all of them with her laughing and smiling a lot, especially when she was with her parents. Anakin looked extra happy in all the pictures, except for one where he'd been feeding Gabby and she got him all messy. That one, he looked unamused, but Gabby was laughing at him.
"Even as a baby, she created mischief." Caroline chuckled.
"You should've seen after she started walking." Anakin said, walking in. "Even Dooku couldn't resist cooing at her. She's just that adorable."
Caroline then picked up Lamenta's baby album and showed everyone all the cute pictures of Lamenta when she was a baby.
"Lamenta was an adorable baby too. It wasn't easy getting pictures or videos of her smiling though. She always started crying whenever she saw a camera. So, Carmine and I had to be a little creative."
"It was thanks to both that and Lamenta discovering her powers that we were able to spot any hidden cameras or gift baskets for Count Crescendo." Carmine added.
"Do Omega and Boba have any baby albums?"
"Actually, they do." Anakin said, picking up one.
The grownups were laughing at how cute Boba was as a little baby.
"I don't care how many people say all clone babies look like him," said Padme, looking at a picture of Baby Boba chewing his little foot. "He's the cutest of them all."
Inconveniently, the kids happened to walk in.
"Mom!" Boba whined, looking embarrassed. "Put that away! No one needs to see that!"
"I wanna see!" Diamond said, flying and looking at the album.
Boba turned red with embarrassment as everyone looked at his baby pictures, especially when they looked at one of him in the bath, covered in foamy bubbles.
"You're so cute, Boba!" Omega said.
"So are you, Omega." Kara said, opening Omega's baby book.
"I guess even the Kaminoans couldn't resist taking a few pictures when you were a baby." Hunter said.
"And you and the other batchers, apparently." said Lamenta. "There are pictures of you as babies too."
Lamenta remembered from the incident with Rattle Snake how the entire Bad Batch got turned into babies, and sure enough the photos matched.
Naturally, Susy and Shmi couldn't resist gawking at Carmine's baby book.
"Carmine was so adorable!" Susy cooed, making Carminw blush.
Sadly, Anakin didn't have a lot of baby pictures. But the few he did have, he was definitely adorable too.
"They grow up so fast, our children." Qui-Gon said.
Looking at everyone's baby pictures, it reminded everyone of just how precious every member of the family was and all the memories they made and the lessons they learned as they grew were important. All of them started out as tiny babies at some point. Even the elder Jedi were babies once.
Now, Obi-Wan had a special baby of his own, whom he loved very much.
As bedtime came along, Obi-Wan and Satine tucked their baby into bed, only for Olivia to start crying not much later.
Obi-Wan approached Olivia's bassinet and gently picked her up and rocked her in his arms, trying to calm her down.
"Shh. Sh. Sh. Sh. Don't cry, Olivia." Obi-Wan soothed. "Daddy's here. Daddy's here."
It felt so odd yet so wonderful to say that. To refer to himself as 'Daddy' to his baby girl. He wondered if this was how Anakin felt when he'd comforted Gabby for the first time.
Olivia continued crying though. Obi-Wan continued to shush her, and then he came up with a lullaby to sing her to sleep. He started gently rocking her, and sang to her.
Evening is a-falling
So rest your weary head
Don't cry, little baby
Sleep tight in your bed
The songbirds are a-nestling
Way up in the trees
The scent of springtime flowers
Floating on the breeze
The full moon is a-shining
In the sky above
Hush now, little darling
Bundled up with love
Olivia's eyes slowly started to drift into sleep. Obi-Wan looked with no other expression but love at his sleeping daughter, then he kissed her little head and lay her down in her crib.
"Goodnight, my little princess."
But what he didn't know then, was that someone was watching from far away.
In her magic mirror, Mariverde could see Baby Olivia Kenobi fast asleep in her cradle.
"Oh, so this adorable little brat belongs to Duke Obi-Wan Kenobi, does she?" Mariverde thought aloud. "Obviously, an enemy of the mother would be a foolish choice. But an enemy of this Jedi just might provide an advantage to how this baby may assist in my plans."
Mariverde did a little research on Obi-Wan's enemies, and he found where they were being held.
"A simple retrieval spell." she smirked.
And so, she cast a little spell with some of her moths, and in her hands appeared an enchanted book, out of which she released two stone statues, onto which she placed two of her mariclavas.
One mariclava landed on each of the statues' heads, and turned them back into flesh and blood dathomirians by the names of Darth Maul and Savage Oppress.
Both the Sith gasped and stretched out as they'd been stiff for quite some time.
"Where am I?!" Maul said, looking for his weapon. "Where is my lightsaber?"
"Welcome, my dears." Mariverde said.
The dathomirians froze and growled as they saw a cloamed figure enter the light.
"Who are you?" Savage asked.
"I am Mariverde. I am your savior, and I am about to offer you the chance of a lifetime. The chance to be my apprentices."
"Darth Sidious is my master." said Maul.
"Not anymore. I'm afraid he has been destroyed by none other than the Jedi Anakin Skywalker."
Mariverde explained to the Sith that she had the power to grant them any power they could dream of, but in return they must serve her every whim. And what she wanted from them was to kidnap a princess.
"Mirror, mirror, on the wall, show me the faces of whom I wish to fall."
And the mirror showed an image of the Skywalker-Jinn family with everyone in it, including...
"Qui-Gon Jinn?! Alive? But I killed him years ago!" Maul growled.
"Yes, but apparently a little girl healed him back to the realm of living." Mariverde said. "This is your chance to exact revenge on Obi-Wan Kenobi in a manner much worse than death."
And then she showed an inage of the Kenobi family with their new baby.
"Kenobi has married and has a daughter now, one I have no doubts will be a powerful Jedi someday." Mariverde said. "Retrieve her for me, and I shall grant you anything your dark hearts desire as we raise her in the dark arts."
The two sith began liking the sound of that.
"In doing so, you shall grow in power, exact revenge on your enemies, and I shall destroy Solaris and its royal family for good."