Chapter 9

Padmé was ridiculously flattered by the fact that someone wanted to kill her. It showed that she was taken seriously by all who saw her as a threat and their enemy. Padmé thought that making the right type of enemies was a show of character. You could tell a lot about a person by people they surrounded themself with, even if not all companions had been freely chosen. Padmé had accepted Naboo's Senator post with the vow that she wouldn't be yet another member of Coruscant's elite willing to go along with what brought the most profit.

Naboo's Senators swore the same oath as their monarchs: peace and justice overarching.

She only wished that the price for it wasn't so high.

Padmé had prided herself on the fact that she had never lost even one of her handmaidens, that from the beginning to the end of her terms, she had been able to release them from their vows and listen to them swear them once more.

She had to ensure that Cordé's funeral would be conducted with the highest honors. Her sacrifice would not be in vain. The Naboo's past was not without darkness, but Padmé had educated herself best she could and tried to learn from her people's mistakes.

Her planet strove to be the peaceful center of the Mid Rim, but the last years had hardened them once more. Where their military had been one of the smallest in the region once, they had since become warier, more well-armed. Padmé knew that she wouldn't go down in history as one of Naboo's more peaceful politicians. She would be known for the harsh sacrifice of war, the blood of their innocents, and the justified outcry against the horrors her people had been subjugated to.

Protecting her people against even more torment meant fulfilling her duty here on Coruscant.

This was the reason she wasn't looking at Palpatine with too much kindness. The man might be smiling and acting as if he cared for her health, but if he truly loved Naboo and the Republic as much as he claimed, he would encourage her to stay on Coruscant. Giving her Jedi protection was overkill. The Order could barely afford to spare one member, never mind two, and sending her away was absolutely unnecessary.

Palpatine had been her mentor growing up. He should know what dishonor this would bring upon Cordé's family to know that their daughter's charge had abandoned the post Cordé had died for. Padmé wanted to shout in outrage, but she knew exactly what that would look like.

So she agreed to the Jedi guards but she fought viciously against leaving.

She had survived this one assassination attempt, she could and she would survive another.

X

"It's not fair!" Ahsoka complained, stomping her foot. "Why don't I get to visit Padmé?"

Anakin's amusement brushed over her with light feathers and Ahsoka didn't hesitate to push away his wings, uncaring if a few of his feathers got bent. She didn't want to be treated like a little youngling incapable of thinking for herself.

"Because this is an official mission to a Senator in danger," Anakin said slowly as if he were talking to a toddler. "This is not just a fun visit."

"Well, yeah, but still! Padmé is my friend too! And it's not fair that you get to visit your crush—"

"Ahsoka!" Anakin blushed as red as the bead on his braid, rightfully so. His infatuation with Padmé was so embarrassing. He was awful at hiding it. Ahsoka had no idea how he managed to talk to Padmé with no trouble, but the moment somebody mentioned her, he became a stuttering mess.

"I will shout it in every temple hall," Ahsoka threatened. As Anakin just glared at her, Ahsoka was getting the vague sense that someone laughed with her.

"You wouldn't dare," Anakin said, arms crossed, and he leaned forward to stare her directly into her eyes, so Ahsoka did her best to mirror him.

"Watch me."

Moments passed with them glaring at each other until Obi-Wan broke the silence by opening the door. "What are you two discussing?"

"I want to go with you to visit Padmé," Ahsoka answered without breaking eye contact. She wasn't going to lose this battle.

"She's blackmailing me!" Anakin exclaimed at the same time.

"About what? Your crush?" Obi-Wan asked casually as he put on his outer robes, preparing for the meeting Ahsoka wanted to attend so desperately.

Obi-Wan's comment caused Anakin to break as he squeaked like a tooka kitten caught with their hand in the cookie jar. Obi-Wan only raised his brow at Anakin's attempt to keep face. "Oh please, Anakin, it's not really a secret. And even if you tried to really keep it a secret for everyone else, you couldn't keep it a secret from me."

Ahsoka grinned. Okay, perhaps she wasn't going to see Padmé so soon, but Anakin's expression more than made up for it.

X

Sabé wasn't sure what was more hilarious, the way not-so-little-anymore Anakin Skywalker stumbled over his own words while praising Padmé, or the way Padmé desperately tried to cling to her professionalism while keeping from hugging him.

"Twenty credits they'll do something rash, dumb, and reckless by the time the actual vote happens," she told Eirtaé.

Her friend only snorted. "I'm not foolish enough to take that bet. I was there when Anakin told her about his illegal street racing and Padmé decided to share details of some of our expeditions, all lovestruck."

The Jedi and Padmé were still discussing the arrangements for Padmé's stay, but the way she and Anakin kept glancing at each other was almost too cheesy for Sabé.

"Fair enough."

X

Most of the time, Anakin thought that he knew Obi-Wan as well as two people could possibly know each other, and then there were the few moments where Obi-Wan's behavior surprised Anakin. Their mission parameters clearly indicated that they had to protect Padmé against all threats, preferably even anticipate them and eliminate them before they even reached her.

Searching for who exactly wanted to see her dead was imperative. It would just be overkill to send two Jedi, of which nearly both were Knights, otherwise. Anakin knew the Chancellor was protective of Padmé, she had spoken of him often enough during their calls, but certainly, he wouldn't be wasting resources otherwise.

Obi-Wan, however, appeared to be perfectly willing to stick to bodyguard duty only, a job for which one of the Jedi on Senate duty would certainly be enough.

Arguing against him with fickle impressions of breaking ice and storming winds were bat away without another remark as Obi-Wan very nearly ignored him in his decision making. Anakin was not a snot-nosed Padawan anymore, and even at age nine he hadn't been dumb enough to just rush into danger.

Okay, maybe that wasn't entirely the truth, but Anakin couldn't shake the feeling that Obi-Wan was clinging to their bond as if it were made of spiderwebs instead of kyber crystals. Anakin just didn't get it. Obi-Wan knew that he needed all the experience he could get, all the excellent mission reports so that the Council would knight him soon.

Even though Anakin and Ahsoka were Master and Padawan in all but name already, nothing could be officially done until Anakin was of the right rank. So far, nobody had made Ahsoka any offers. Everyone knew Anakin had staked his claim at eight years old, utterly in love with the child he knew would be great someday. Still, she was getting older and Anakin didn't want anybody, especially Qui-Gon or Dooku, who both knew Ahsoka well, to get any ideas. His grandmasters had been a little too interested in Ahsoka's lightsaber techniques lately for Anakin's liking.

He wasn't going to interfere, of course. Ahsoka deserved the best training the temple could give her, but he still wanted to be the one to impress and teach her someday.

Thankfully, when the danger came knocking, Obi-Wan didn't hesitate in discarding all previously made plans and threw himself right at it, this time a little more literally than usual.

"Won't he—"

"Don't worry!" Anakin called out reassuringly as he rushed past Padmé's attendants. "My Master won't fall."

He couldn't.

Anakin's control had been clumsy when he had first met Obi-Wan. Instead of carefully weaving a bond, he had dug his paint-covered fingers into Obi-Wan's soul and mixed the colors until he could derive the shape he had dreamed of for so many nights.

He had crafted fine wings for his Master, wider than the temple was high. The Force might be silent here, his parent may have abandoned him to his own devices, but Anakin knew that the copper feathers would carry Obi-Wan everywhere. They might not be real tangible wings, capable of allowing him to soar in the sky, but they were made out of something much more precious, his favor and the Force.

Obi-Wan Kenobi would always make it through any and all dangers as long as Anakin kept his hold on him.

X

Mace couldn't say that he had dreaded the day they let Anakin Skywalker lose on the galaxy without someone grounding him, but he was certainly wary. Anakin had grown up to be a brilliant Jedi. He still had some rough edges, as did all Padawans his age, but he was kind and, most importantly, learned from his mistakes. While Anakin wasn't always particularly happy about admitting them, a character trait that might stem from his omniscient parent, he learned from his mortal flaws just like everyone else.

In this, Anakin Skywalker was very much still only nineteen and much too young for a galaxy as cruel as theirs had become. It was crucial that he counted his every step until he crossed the line, given that the power slumbering within him, still not fully awakened, could wreak havoc and wipe entire cities from the maps.

Not that Anakin had done so yet, but Mace suspected more and more that Anakin was a collection of chances not yet taken rather than limits imposed upon him. One fully trained Jedi alone could do the work of an entire army. There was no telling what Anakin could do when left to his own devices.

Obi-Wan was certainly not as convinced as the rest of them of letting his apprentice go on his first solo mission, but every first-time Master was anxious when their Padawan started to spread their wings.

"You will accompany Senator Amidala to Naboo, Anakin. Please don't take any unnecessary risks and don't draw anyone's attention."

"I'll keep her safe," Anakin promised, the cadence of his voice just a bit closer to the echo that haunted Mace's nights than he was comfortable with.

Mace would be a little more reassured that Anakin's words were only that of a star-struck teenager if he didn't sound so much like a shatterpoint when he spoke.

To be young and in love, what a terrifying state of being.

Let him rise.

Mace's expression stayed neutral as Obi-Wan and Anakin bowed and left the room, but deep within his mind, he dared to enjoy the presence of his confidant. It wasn't often anymore that Mace heard the Force's voice, but whenever they did manage to open their throat far enough that their teeth glinted in the sunlight, Mace had learned to listen.

It almost made him miss the days they would wrap themselves around him and sing long-forgotten melodies.

X

The further away from Coruscant Shmi traveled, the straighter she walked without any ashes attempting to choke her with every shaking breath. Shmi was seldom lost in either her mind or the physical world anymore. She had an entire Order of people at her back who adored and loved her, jumping at the chance to help without her even crying out.

The beginning of her life on Coruscant among the Jedi as one of them had been riddled with various difficulties. The way the Jedi just anticipated what you needed was a foreign concept to her. In theory, it was similar enough to the community found within the slave quarters, but in practice, there were klicks between the kindness offered by a fellow tormented soul and eyes staring straight into your soul, bypassing all your shields just to provide you the aid you needed but were too hesitant to ask for.

While Shmi had been incredibly thankful, she had also felt so helpless, almost infantilized as if they assumed she couldn't do a single thing on her own.

She had been wrong in that, of course. The Jedi were no mind readers, and Shmi's shields were of the strongest within the Order, but the unexpected openness and living surrounded by heralds of the Force, had certainly given her a false impression.

Returned to the planet of her torment, binary suns and heat scalding enough to burn the meat from your bones, Shmi felt decades older than she had been when they had left it, yet her steps were lighter than they had ever been before.

Tatooine was a frequent point of discussion in the temple and the Senate as it was caught in-between two fronts, a bloody and horrible civil war, for the better half of ten years now.

This too was her doing.

Or her son's, though Shmi didn't want to place the burden of so many onto the shoulders of a child just wanting to make his mother smile.

She never wanted Anakin to return to this place.

"Who are you, stranger?" the guard at the door asked, holding their blaster just a bit tighter.

If Shmi wanted, she could reach into their mind and twist it, just walk past them without them ever noticing. She could take the blaster from them too, kill them quicker than they thought possible.

The Jedi hadn't made her strong.

Shmi Skywalker had already been strong because the only other option given to her was falling into the dark pit of despair. Shmi hadn't allowed herself to wallow in such agony, to start fading away as so many did because nobody would have been there to protect Anakin then.

Such exhaustion, giving in when you were at the limit, was a luxury for Core Worlders.

As a little girl, malnourished and tired, limbs longing for a rest, she had been taken aside by the older slave working with her in the kitchen. They had washed up her face and told her that she could rest when she no longer had a reason to wake up for. Shmi had built herself up on dreams and reasons, had never given herself the space to feel the depth of her tragedy.

No, the Jedi hadn't made her strong and they hadn't made her kind and they hadn't given her a purpose.

They hadn't even given her the freedom to make her own choices.

Shmi had gotten all of that by herself, by forcing herself to stand upright with hunched shoulders and eyes focused on the child at her feet, then running wild, armed with bloody detonators.

What the Jedi had given her was peace of mind. The ability to stay calm as the storm raged, not because she was terrified of the outcome if she gave up, but because she knew she could weather the storm.

Shmi was allowed to be scared and terrified still, but she could stand tall despite them, not in fear of them.

She pulled away her hood as she approached the two figures. "My name is Shmi Skywalker. I am a member of the Jedi Order and I am here to offer my help."

The first guard didn't react at all to her name, but the second visibly flinched; whether it was because of her name or her allegiance, she couldn't tell, but Shmi hadn't come here to deny either.

"Skywalker?" the second guard repeated and then, slowly, lowered their blaster. "Shmi Skywalker, who walks the dunes with her head held high and chained down the sun so she could give birth to it?"

That was one way of describing her, Shmi thought with a chuckle. Not too far from the truth, but not close to it either.

Marvelous mortals, binding blinding truths—

"Has Tal'oola been telling stories about me?" Shmi asked, thinking of the woman who had grinned at her, free with the night sky behind her, stars shining bright.

The guard smiled in turn and welcomed her into the palace Shmi has once been imprisoned in.