DISCLAIMER: Star Wars and all publicly recognisable characters, names and references, etc are the sole property of George Lucas, Lucasfilm Ltd, Lucasarts Inc and 20th Century Fox. This fan fiction was created solely for entertainment and no money was made from it. Also, no copyright or trademark infringement was intended. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author. Any other characters, the storyline and the actual story are the property of the author.
Anakin Skywalker had never been so humiliated his young life. And that included his entire time as a slave. And Wald's seventh hatchday party.
"Sabe, I feel stupid," he announced.
"No one's going to see you," Sabe scolded. "And aren't you happy that your clothes are all nice and clean?"
"I'd be happier if they were on me."
"They're wet. You'll catch your death of cold."
"I'm about to catch my death of dorkiness." Anakin stared down at his orange-clad body. After Sabe had commandeered his clothes for washing, she realized she couldn't well have a naked ten-year-old running about her quarters. And promptly loaned him one of her sets of handmaiden's robes.
"Nonsense. I wear those all the time."
"You're also a GIRL!"
"Male and female Jedi all wear the same robes."
"Robes are not dresses, Sabe!"
"I don't have time to argue with you. I need to go see the Queen. You stay here, and don't put on those clothes until they are bone dry, you hear me?"
"Yes," Anakin replied dutifully, plopping down in a chair. As soon as Sabe walked out the door, he planned to ditch the robes. Well... maybe he would leave them on 'til his clothes were dry. They were better than being naked. And they were kinda comfortable.
Suddenly, he heard Sabe's voice, right outside the door. "Oh, hello, Jedi Knight Kenobi. Anakin's been waiting for you. Go on in."
Anakin just managed to dive behind the chair as the door swished open.
Obi-Wan glanced around the handmaidens' quarters. This was definitely one place he had NEVER planned to be. Where was Anakin? "Anakin?" he called, hesitantly.
"Uh... could you come back later?" Anakin's voice called back.
"What? Anakin, where are you?" he asked, peering around the various pieces of furniture.
"Just come back--"
Obi-Wan looked behind the chair. "Gah!" he recoiled. "Anakin!"
"Sabe made me! I--"
Obi-Wan took a second, more cautious look at his Padawan. "This isn't something I did to you, is it?"
"Oh, shut up, Obi-Wan," Anakin said, stomping back to the bathroom, where his still-damp clothes were hanging. "Sabe decided my clothes needed cleaning, and then she made me wear this stupid thing." A few minutes later, he emerged again, clad in his familiar, though slightly damper than usual robes. "Okay, I'm ready to go."
Obi-Wan surveyed Anakin's clean outfit. "She does a good job. Do you think she'd wash mine for me?"
"You wouldn't like the price," Anakin said, tossing the handmaiden's robes on the chair. "Euch. These are all cold and wet."
"They dry quickly. Especially while you're wearing them."
Anakin started to say something, then looked at Obi-Wan. "Do you have experience with wet robes or something?"
"Er... don't worry about it. Let's go. Where are we going?"
"Down to the hangar. I need to talk to Ric about something."
The two Jedi left the handmaidens' quarters, and headed through the halls of the palace. "So, do you actually have a plan for stopping the wedding?" Obi-Wan asked.
"Well... we've had several. Most of them didn't work."
"Plans like crawling through the ductwork?"
"Actually, that was one of the better ones. Things were looking pretty bad, 'til I was spying on Prince Wuss-terly a few hours ago."
"Anakin, be nice. He's still an important dignitary."
"Anyway, he was talking to his parents. Obi-Wan, I don't think they like the idea of him marrying Amidala any more than we do. But somehow, he's got them convinced that Amidala wants him to marry her, not the other way around. Plus, he's a real momma's boy. If we can get her help, I think we can call off the wedding."
"So we need to get some sort of transmission to Jocar?"
"Not enough. I think we need to bring them here."
"No. You've done enough planet-hopping for quite some time."
"I didn't mean me. That's why we're going to see Ric."
"All right," Obi-Wan conceded. "How is Ric going to get them here?"
"I don't know."
"Are you sure they'll help stop the marriage?"
"Well... not entirely. But it's better than nothing." Anakin looked away, pensive.
Obi-Wan nodded slowly. "I wish we could talk to Amidala about this. But I get the feeling that would just make things worse."
Anakin looked at Obi-Wan suddenly. "I miss Mom."
Obi-Wan blinked. "Er... not to sound callous, but what does your mother have to do with anything?"
"I'm scared, Obi-Wan, and I don't know what to do. And I hate everyone looking to me for what to do. Mom always knew what to do in situations like this."
Obi-Wan cracked a smile at his Padawan. "And how often did situations like this come up on Tatooine?"
"Well... okay, nothing quite like this. But I always knew when I got in trouble, I could go to her, and she'd figure out something."
Obi-Wan sighed, and looked at Anakin's dejected expression for a moment. "Anakin, I will think of something. Amidala is not going to marry Westerly."
Anakin looked up at Obi-Wan, blue eyes wide. "Promise?"
"I promise."
"Thanks, Obi-Wan," Anakin said, tackling him with a quick hug. Obi-Wan patted the boy's head fondly. Now, if I can only make good on that, he thought to himself.
I need a drink, Prince Westerly of Jocar thought to himself, as he walked through the hallways of the palace. Talking with his parents, his mother in particular, always seemed to evoke the need to ingest large amounts of alcohol. Maybe those odd lizard people have something. The Dungans or whatever. They looked like the drinking type.
He was snapped out of his reverie by the sound of approaching voices coming down the hallway perpendicular to his. Westerly glanced around the corner slightly, and spotted Obi-Wan Kenobi talking with a young boy he'd never seen before. Westerly flattened himself against the wall, hoping the Jedi Knight didn't see him. Fortunately, the man seemed engrossed in conversation with the child.
"I wish we could talk to Amidala about this," he was saying. "But I get the feeling that would just make things worse."
What is he talking about? Westerly wondered.
The boy looked up at the Jedi suddenly. "I miss Mom."
Westerly stared at their receding backs, their voices degrading into mumbles. Finally, he found his voice. "Mom?" he echoed faintly. "They have an illegitimate child?" Blindly, he stumbled back down the hallway, his mind valiently trying to process the information it had just been forcefed. And that's how he managed to collide with someone wearing a shade of orange that would be visible all the way from Jocar.
"Oh, I'm sorry, handmaiden," he said, extending a hand to the flustered girl he'd just knocked onto the floor.
"No, I'm sorry," she said, brushing off her skirts. "I wasn't paying attention to where I was going."
Suddenly, a thought struck what generally passed for Westerly's brain. "How long have you been around here?"
"Oh, since the Queen was elected," the girl said. "Is there something I can do for you?"
Westerly smiled. "Tell me everything you know about Obi-Wan Kenobi."
Rabe frowned. "Come with me."
"No can do."
"RIC!"
"I'm sorry, Ani, but there's no way I can sneak one of these fighters out of here. It's not possible."
"But how can we get to Jocar without a ship?"
"I don't know. Maybe we could send a transmission."
"No. Why would they believe us? They have to see for themselves that Amidala doesn't love Westerly," Anakin pressed. "We've got to get to Jocar... somehow!"
Obi-Wan set his jaw. "Anakin, stay here with Ric. I'll be right back."
"Obi-Wan Kenobi is a disgusting, vile pervert," Rabe announced.
"I thought as much," Westerly snarled, pacing the handmaidens' quarters.
"Furthermore, he has been seducing our Queen. I believe they've been having an..." she cringed, "affair."
"They have a child!" Westerly declared.
"No, they don't," Rabe replied.
"They do! I saw him!"
"Your Highness, I've known Amidala as long as she's known that pervert, and she's never been pregnant."
"But... I saw the child..." Westerly ran the conversation back through his mind. Unless the child had meant... "Then Kenobi has an illegitimate child with someone else!"
"I would believe that!" Rabe added.
"He has bewitched the fair Amidala, and lured her in with his own disgusting corruption of love!"
"Exactly!" Rabe exclaimed. "Oh, none of the other handmaidens would believe me! I'm so glad you see it, too!"
"We must save her from his foul sorcery," Westerly said darkly.
"I've been keeping an eye on him, and I have a list of his perversions in my diary," Rabe said solemnly. "Would you like to see?"
"Of course," Westerly said.
Rabe dragged a chair over to the tall bookcase that stood in the corner of the room. She climbed up, and standing on her tiptoes, groped for one particularly worn-looking novel. The chair tilted dangerously.
Westerly, being the dashing hero-type, managed to catch her before she hit the floor. Rabe, being the cute damsel-type, blushed winningly and giggled a little. The whole scene was quite disgusting.
And in a huge cosmic coincidence, Tare picked that moment to walk through the door. She took one look at the revolting episode and walked out again. "Rabe... and Westerly?" she marveled. "Wait 'til I tell the other girls!"
Meanwhile, Westerly looked at Rabe. "Did you hear something?"
"No," Rabe replied. "Um... I think you can put me down, now."
Obi-Wan breathed a sigh of relief as he dashed into Hangar Bay 327, and saw the "Lightning Vardulia" still sitting in a puddle of coolant. Obi-Wan had no idea why the old spacer had chosen that particular name for the rusted Arcturian cruiser, and frankly, he was afraid to ask. He banged in vain on the door for several minutes before realizing that Spath had no reason to spend all his time on the ship. "If I were Spath, where would I be?" Obi-Wan wondered out loud. "Local tavern," he replied. "I can't believe I even asked."
"But the ol' Vardulia held together for one last jump into hyperspace," Spath said, slamming down his mug of ale for emphasis.
"Wow," the barmaid echoed.
Spath was in old-crusty-spacer-heaven. No one on Naboo had heard all his old smuggling escapades. He'd found an entirely new audience. The only person on Malastare nowadays who listened to him with that kind of attention was the Skywalker kid. The one who was scheduled to be dead very shortly, if Obi-Wan had anything to do with it. I can't believe the guy fixed my hyperdrive, coolant system and food dispensers, Spath thought. I'll have to encourage Anakin to run away more often.
"SPATH!"
Spath's head jerked up. "Kenobi!" he called, waving.
The Jedi found his way over to the bar.
"Decide you wanted to fix the outside of the Vardulia while she was in port?"
"Not exactly. I need your help."
"That's what I'm here for, kid."
"Come with me."
"Where're we goin'?"
"The Palace."
"The Palace? No kiddin'."
"No kidding. Do you know how many taverns I had to run into, yelling 'Spath' at the top of my lungs?"
"How many?"
"More than I chose to. And by the way, I think 'Spath' may be some sort of Nubian obscenity."
"No kiddin'."
"No kidding."
It just figured that when she had the gossip of the century, gossip that could possibly even solve all the wedding problems, there was no one around to tell it to. Tare stomped her foot angrily. Where was everyone? Sabe and Sache might be helping the Queen, but she couldn't very well barge in on that. Where was Eirtae? She certainly wasn't in their quarters. Tare blushed. Maybe she was down in the hangar. After all, she and that Ric Olie fellow seemed to get along rather well. And even if Ei wasn't there, well, perhaps Ric could use a little gossip.
Amidala stared at her reflection. Then she glanced around the chambers. Sabe and Sache had both gone with the seamstress in order to carry more supplies. Good, no one was around. She cleared her throat.
"I, Queen Amidala of Naboo, do take Prince Westerly of Jocar as..." She made a face. She swished the skirt around for a little bit. It was too tempting to be in a wedding dress, half-finished though it might be, to play pretend. "I, Queen Amidala of Naboo, do take Ric Olie as my lawfully wedded husband." She frowned. Granted, she'd had a crush on the fighter pilot a long time ago, but it had quickly passed. Very quickly. In fact, she suspected that Eirtae had developed her own attachment to the jovial pilot recently. And she knew Sabe had gone through a phase. What was it about the guy? When she thought about it, he was actually kind of old. She frowned, thinking of other people she wouldn't mind marrying. Unfortunately, she didn't know that many. Captain Panaka was too old, Anakin was too young, Jar Jar was a Gungan, and Governor Bibble was Governor Bibble. Maybe Westerly wasn't such a horrible marriage prospect after all. Wait, no. She cleared her throat, and smiled into the mirror one more time. "I, Queen Amidala of Naboo, do take Obi-Wan Kenobi as my lawfully wedded husband." There. That sounded much better. Suddenly, she realized what she was saying. "I have to get out of this wedding dress. My mind is starting to go."
"Hmm. Nice hangar you've got here," Spath said, glancing around.
Obi-Wan dragged him over to where Ric and Anakin were tinkering with Ric's fighter.
"I'm back," Obi-Wan announced.
Ric and Anakin promptly both hit their heads on the raised piece of paneling under which they were working.
"Hey, squirt," Spath said. "Nice to see your old man hasn't killed you, yet."
"Spath!" Anakin cried. "What are you doing here?"
"I don't know. Kenobi?"
"Do you know how to get to Jocar?"
"Sure. My third wife was Jocarian. And let me tell you, never marry a Jocarian. Two words-- marriage yerknahs."
"Wonderful. As it happens, we're trying to prevent a friend of ours from marrying a Jocarian. I need you to take Anakin to Jocar."
"Me? I thought you said no more planet-hopping."
"Well, there's no getting the king and queen off-planet without a hefty dose of mind tricks, and I'm stuck here. I expect you to be on your best behavior."
"Hold on," Ric broke in. "You expect a couple of planetary monarchs to go gallivanting about the galaxy with a grubby kid and an old spacer?"
"I'm not grubby," Anakin protested.
"Hmm, you're right," Obi-Wan said, ignoring Anakin completely. "There's got to be someone who would look... slightly more official..."
And in another moment of cosmic coincidence, Tare took that moment to dash into the hangar, bursting with gossip.
"Official?" Ric asked. "Such as... one of the Queen's trusted servants?"
"That might do," Obi-Wan said.
"Huh?" Tare asked.
The boys just grinned.
"You are most perceptive, handmaiden," Westerly said, shutting Rabe's diary.
"Thank you," she said. "But the most important thing is to get Kenobi away from Amidala."
"Correct." There was silence. "Er, how are we going to do that?"
"I've been trying to keep him out of her quarters, but I can't guard her all the time. And the other girls seem to like him."
"Hmm. Then perhaps we shall just have to watch the blackguard all the time!"
"Er... I have handmaiden duties sometimes."
"Too true. And I, too, have princely matters to attend to."
More silence.
"Perhaps we could set a trap!"
"What kind of trap?"
"Um..."
Had Obi-Wan, in all his perverted glory, ever suspected that the brilliant think tank of Westerly and Rabe was plotting against him, he wouldn't have been worried in the least. And for good reason.
The day had started out so normally. She'd woken up. She'd put on her usual handmaiden's robes. She'd had oatcakes for breakfast. But somehow, something between breakfast and now had gone horribly wrong, and now Tare the Handmaiden was on a beat-up Arcturian cruiser named, of all things, the "Lightning Vardulia," on her way to Jocar with a grizzled old space pirate and a junior Jedi, with the intention of kidnapping two monarchs. Not to mention the entire Rabe incident. Where had the day gone so wrong?
"Jocar, here we come," Spath said from the pilot's chair as the "Vardulia" slingshot out of Naboo's orbit.
"Wheee!" Anakin announced.
Tare's stomach lurched. She hated going fast. She despised flash speeders and those wretched speeder bikes all the boys in her home village had seemed so keen on. She'd never left the planet before, but she'd assumed it couldn't possibly be any worse than riding on the back of Lan Joppa's souped-up Nevin-Turstil Superkaadu. She was so wrong. "I think I'm going to be ill," she muttered.
Anakin turned around in the navigator's chair. "Y'okay, Tare?"
"Uhnn..." Tare managed.
"Ready for lightspeed," Spath announced, gunning the hyperdrive.
Mercifully, Tare passed out completely before the ship ever made it into hyperspace.
The seamstress was still hard at work when Eirtae finally showed up, brandishing the extra ribbon she'd been sent to town to fetch.
"It's crazy out there," she announced.
"What's going on?" Amidala asked.
"Well, everyone's excited about the wedding, of course. It's like some sort of festival out there. Music, food... everything."
"Maybe you can get Ric to take you down sometime tomorrow," Sache teased.
"I... er..." Eirtae gave up trying to think of an excuse and just blushed. The other handmaidens and Amidala giggled. Eirtae's crush wasn't exactly a secret.
"I wish I could see," Amidala sighed. "But there's so much to be done tomorrow... I think you girls should definitely slip into town, though. But you have to tell me about it later." She sighed, and looked down at the seamstress, busily hemming. "Are we almost done? I'm getting tired."
"Almost, m'lady. After I get these last few stitches in, you can take it off." She knotted the thread. "There you go." Amidala slid the dress over her head, and handed it to the elderly seamstress. "If anyone stops by, tell them I went to bed early," she told the handmaidens. "I'm sure tomorrow's going to be another big day."
"She just seems so... sad all the time," Sache sighed.
"Ric said earlier that Anakin and Obi-Wan cooked up something that may save her. Then this will all be over," Eirtae pointed out.
"True, but I wish there was something we could do for her now," Sache said.
Despite the fact that he wasn't even there yet, Ric Olie's room had been chosen as the meeting place of the evening, in hopes of steering clear of Rabe. The three handmaidens looked at each other from their various perches and sighed.
The door swished, and Ric walked in, Obi-Wan in tow. "Hey, girls," he said jovially.
"Hi, Ric," the girls chorused.
"You've got them trained," Obi-Wan observed.
"Hi, Obi-Wan," they chorused.
"Why the long faces?" Ric asked. "We've got Ani and Tare off to Jocar to finally fix this whole mess. This wedding will be in shambles before you can say 'marriage yerknah.'"
"What is a yerknah, anyway?" Obi-Wan asked.
Ric shrugged blankly in response.
"We're worried about Amidala," Sache explained. "She's so... depressed."
"Well, who wouldn't be?" Eirtae said glumly.
"It's too bad we can't tell her about this," Sabe added.
"Isn't there anything you could do to get her mind off the wedding?" Obi-Wan suggested helpfully.
As one, the handmaidens looked at Obi-Wan. Then they looked at each other. Slowly, grins spread over their faces. Obi-Wan was sorry he'd opened his mouth.