love language
Sometimes a handmaiden's job can be quite boring.
It's not a pretty thought, but it's one Dormé has nonetheless as she dutifully files into the conference room for what feels like the millionth debrief on this seemingly never-ending war. No one had really expected the Separatist movement to hold on with the tenacity that it had. Even Padmé's usual unwavering fervor and dedication had grown weary under the parade of planets constantly in crisis and begging for aid. Though one would be hard-pressed to see the slight fatigue in the Senator from Naboo's step as she quickly navigates to the open seat next to Senator Organa near the middle of the long rectangular table at the center of the room.
Ruefully, Dormé watches her former monarch strike up a collegial conversation with the Alderaanian Queen's husband and feels remorse over her shameful if fleeting moment of weakness. She is beyond lucky to serve such a formidable woman and persistent champion of peace, even if that sometimes relegates her to the more menial tasks of an assistant. At the end of the day, it was still an important job to be done.
Turning to the row of chairs reserved for attending Senatorial aides along the perimeter of the room, Dormé allows herself a last indecorous sigh and sinks down into expected position next to Minala Lodilyn.
"Good morning," Senator Organa's assistant greets warmly, the datapad in her lap glowing softly at the ready. "Another rousing day at the office?" She winks, friendly but meaningfully, and Dormé knows her moment of outward resignation didn't go completely unnoticed.
"Morning," Dormé replies genially, her return smile equally chagrinned and conspiratorial. With an efficiency borne of rote muscle memory, her fingers fly over her own handheld work station until its display awakens to the blank screen for note-taking. She holds the device up to Minala in humorous toast. "It would seem so."
Mirroring the sarcastic salute, Minala shoots her a sympathetic glance before turning her attention to the main table in front of them. Polite conversation increases in volume with every passing minute as more and more beings file in for the debrief. The rising din almost gives Dormé enough cover to use her normal voice to further engage her colleague – it would be a great opportunity to glean any unofficial news bulletins that may be of interest to Senator Amidala – but the chance is gone before it ever had the notion to be born. All activity comes to an immediate halt the instant the Chancellor comes to a stand.
In the expectant quiet that settles over the room, Dormé barely catches Minala's almost inaudible whisper.
"Hmmm," she murmurs. "No Jedi present today? That's a bit odd."
Scanning the faces of those gathered, Dormé catalogs each being present as if she was head of a flight crew checking off a passenger manifest. It takes her less than a minute to confirm Minala's astute observation. Most of the chairs around the conference table are full, save one at the Chancellor's right and the space directly across from Padmé, but none of the occupied seats hold Jedi. Her own brow raises with slight query.
Interesting, indeed.
For a meeting specifically held to update the Chancellor on the most recent warfront, the lack of a GAR General's presence is more than a bit odd, though not entirely unprecedented. Sometimes the Jedi relevant to the discussion at hand had already been re-assigned and was required to participate via holocall while enroute to the next mission.
Dormé almost offers that up for Minala's opinion until she notices the lack of holoprojector on the table, and immediately strikes the idea from further consideration. Several other possibilities flit through her mind, when the actual explanation comes barreling into the conference room and skids to a halt, as if he'd been racing through the rotunda's halls at full tilt.
Recognizing the handsome face above the whirlwind of black and dark brown tunics, Dormé realizes, with no small amount of amusement, that he likely had been.
"Sorry, I'm late," Anakin Skywalker apologizes, his soft panting the only remnant of his frenetic entrance.
Twenty sets of eyes turn to regard the tardy Jedi with interest, but the twenty-first pair slowly shifts to the Senator from Naboo. At this point in her career, Dormé has had plenty of experience reading the back of her lady's silhouette, but she still wishes she could gauge just how much glow blazes through the supposedly neutral returned brown stare. Instead, she watches the back of Padmé's head turn in time with Anakin's saunter further into the room. It's not hard for Dormé to envision how hard Padmé is doubling down on the usually unflappable Amidala mask as Anakin's brilliant blue eyes lock onto the conspicuously open seat right across from the table from her.
Before Anakin can claim his prized spot, Padmé's attention is already directed back to the still standing Chancellor. Even from her ramrod straight profile, Dormé can see the way her eyes shine with equal intensity.
Despite the momentary drama surrounding Anakin's late arrival, the meeting commences like any other – at least, initially.
Padmé pointedly keeps her focus moving between speakers, lingering only on Anakin during his remarks and briefly at that. Anakin, however, suffers no such compunction. Though he's wise enough to not openly stare, anyone observing him closely would be blind to miss the way his gaze regularly diverts to the Senator of Naboo far more often than necessary. Subtle was never going to be on the short list to describe Anakin Skywalker, though thankfully, Dormé is fairly certain she is the only one doing any of the observing when it comes to him.
While her fingers scribe the details she absorbs with her ears, Dormé's eyes capture an entirely different sort of meeting happening in the conference room that has nothing to do with relief efforts or military strategy.
At first, Anakin's gloved hand slowly curls from open hand to a closed fist and she thinks he may be trying to relieve the phantom pains that she knows occasionally still plague him. But she has witnessed enough of those uncomfortable moments to know that the flexing of his fingers occurs in a more spontaneous, agitated sort of way, usually followed by an emphatic string of curse words.
This movement is decidedly controlled. And deliberate. And quiet.
If she didn't immediately recognize the hand signal shift from yes to no, she would think that maybe she was reading too far into a simple gesture out of learned paranoia.
Sometimes a handmaiden's job can be quite nerve-wracking.
One of the first things Padmé's original cadre had developed was an entire system of hand signals and body postures when open communication to each other was impossible yet crucial. The information highways of the Senate flowed fast; they needed a way to monitor all of the dealings that were made at conference tables, especially when some of the ones that happened were never spoken of. By silently cuing her handmaidens to pay particular attention to specific Senators at key moments, Padmé was able to keep up with Senatorial life in the hyperspace lane.
But when Padmé slouches a bit, only to straighten again and re-fold her hands together on the tabletop eliciting another relaxation of Anakin's hand almost immediately thereafter, Dormé translates the seemingly innocuous movements as easily as if she was reading the conversation straight off her datapad's screen.
Meet? Padmé asks.
Yes, Anakin answers.
Untangling her interwoven fingers as she sits back in her chair, Padmé lets her left hand fall into her lap while her right index finger and thumb part into a lazy backwards 'L' before sliding out of Dormé's view.
Later or tonight?
She can't see how many times Padmé taps her fingers on the table to convey a specific time, though it's not too hard to glean that Anakin is likely counting out that answer judging by his unblinking focus. Despite what Dormé assumes is his best attempt at maintaining a neutral expression, Anakin frowns, his flat palm clenching into another tight fist. Her own gaze falling disappointedly at the repeated negative signal, Padmé lets her right hand drop into her lap and she shifts her attention back to the front of the conference room.
Keeping her own focus split between two kinds of note-taking, Dormé continues to glance over the couple periodically. Padmé's hands stay firmly folded in her lap, her brown eyes resolutely following the chatter surrounding the Chancellor without any further wayward wandering across the table. Dormé may have had the disadvantage of recognizing the ongoing clandestine conversation so late, but she is by no means convinced that it's indeed over. Not from the way Anakin is blatantly listening with half an ear and a definitively distracted gaze.
Well, maybe distracted is the wrong word. Judging from the antsy way he shifts his weight even as he refuses to shift his cerulean stare, Anakin would agree with her assessment that the secret signaling was only taking a brief intermission if he had anything to say about the matter. He chews his lower lip. His gloved fingers fidget, as if starting to form a thought before stopping again, as if unsure whether to voice the idea to begin with or unable to find the necessary signs to do so. Seemingly frustrated with his inability to wrangle back Padmé's attention, Anakin sighs heavily, and Dormé waits with bated breath for the mistake.
For a second, it makes Dormé wonder just how well versed he is in the Nabooian secret code – she can spout off a list of quiet cues specifically designed to continue discreet communication.
And then Anakin does something at once completely baffling and totally unpredictable. He simply closes his eyes and goes stock still.
It wouldn't be until much later on that Padmé would explain to Dormé exactly what happened in those infinitesimal seconds of empty air.
With a motion so abrupt as to be almost betraying, Padmé's head whips in Anakin's direction just as his eyes open. Leaning onto his elbows, he intertwines his fingers with a bold squeeze only to unwind them, and nonchalantly adjusting the cuff of his sleeve before looking pointedly away to the right over his shoulder, then back at his entranced wife.
The translation is easy enough.
Meet – you and me, soon, where?
But Dormé's keen eye sees it. The blink -and-miss-it deliberate way he slowly drags his index and middle finger over the pulse point of his gloved wrist before reclining into his seat, the look on his face already satisfied at the small, but emphatic and immediate movement Padmé makes with her own hands.
Dormé doesn't even have to look to know Padmé's palms rest openly and press firmly on the table's surface. The roguish grin returning to Anakin's face is answer enough.
Yes!
With most of her lady's person still facing away from her, Dormé can't be entirely sure that she doesn't miss the location for this newly agreed to tête-à-tête. As the professional assembly draws to a close, it occurs to Dormé that maybe she had underestimated Anakin's fluency. Her mind replaying the sequence of events over and over, she is more convinced than ever that Padmé hadn't in fact signaled anything remotely resembling a specific rendezvous spot in her silent response.
She's still pondering what she had missed when Padmé bids a brief farewell to Senator Organa, thanking him for pulling out her chair – a gentlemanly gesture that Dormé sees doesn't go unnoticed by a departing Jedi – and rushes up to greet her handmaiden. There's an extra spark in her eyes, one that Dormé knows has nothing to do with relief effort packages and civic duty.
"Well," Padmé says. "That meeting was quite productive."
Even as she keeps her features placed in professional deference, Dormé lets her tone slip a few notches into a more familiar teasing tone. "In-deed."
Padmé's lips press together to smother the complicit smile that lets Dormé know their own brand of unspoken communication is entirely functional as well.
Falling into step with Padmé, Dormé turns left out of the conference room in the direction of the offices designated for the Chommell sector representatives; dutifully both women had towards the next pressing task for the Senator of Naboo. For all of her professional comportment, Padmé still can't stop the fleeting backward glance she throws over her shoulder. Dormé easily imagines what her lady watches; the tall dark silhouette striding swiftly around the bend in the Senate corridors is one she watched so many times before, the image is practically burned into her mind's eye.
A little sigh of frustration escapes Padmé's carefully constructed composure, but they continue to head the opposite direction.
"I do have one question, though," Dormé says after the quiet tension reaches an altitude that she can practically feel Padmé vibrating with suppressed anticipation.
Padmé tilts her head to show she is listening even if her focus is still being pulled away.
"What does…" Dormé begins, pausing to fidget with her gown's sleeve before drawing two fingers across her wrist, "… this mean? I didn't recognize it."
"Oh, ummm." Padmé's cheeks darken as she retreats into herself momentarily, and Dormé knows she's seeing a different set of fingers repeating the nonverbal cue. All of a sudden, a shyness underlies the heightened subterfuge in the air, and the lady at Dormé's side is not a formidable Galactic representative racing between meetings, but rather a young woman whose heart races to reunite with a young man. Still blushing innocently, Padmé offers up the translation with a less-than-innocent smile, "The southern corridors."
"Ahhh," Dormé says, cottoning on in less than a Corellian nanosecond. The southern corridors of the Senate Rotunda were notorious for darkened corners and discreet nooks, making the location ideal for many off-the-book meetings. "So, Senator Amidala will be officially indisposed for the next hour then?" she asks, returning her friend's grin with a touch of wickedness.
"Or thereabouts…" Padmé trails off vaguely, her cheeks darkening to a vexed pink.
Dormé laughs softly, winking with conspiratorial fervor and nodding over her shoulder. "Well, go on."
Even with the courteous hesitancy she demonstrates on behalf of obligation, Padmé can't stop the luminescent smile that stretches her lips any more than she can stop the sun setting. Gratitude shines behind her eyes, just another form of a silent language long in the making and well-versed in practice.
Watching Padmé spin on her heel to chase Anakin's footsteps, Dormé can't help but openly speak the message she hopes Padmé will relay in earnest at the start of her next "meeting".
"Just tell him to leave your hair alone this time."
Padmé winks, then scurries away, retracing her slow steps in a most enthusiastic manner.
Shaking her head, Dormé resumes her previous path, pressing her lips together to stifle an amused giggle as another thought wends its way through her preoccupied mind.
Sometimes a handmaiden's job was actually quite… diverting.