Padmé isn't taking any of your sass (amidala) wrote in pathways_log, @ 2021-09-26 13:22:00 |
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Entry tags: | star wars: padme amidala, star wars: sabe |
Who: Padme and Sabe
What: Sabe finally tells Padme about her death
When: End of July, during some 'them' time
Where: At a hotel on vacation
Ratings/Warnings: Mentions of character death
Status: Complete
It was a long overdue conversation, but Sabe was half willing to let it go on forever if she wasn’t certain that Padme’s memory of her own death would likely crop up at the worst possible time. With a client, or when she wasn’t there to be with her. Or worse.
There was a quote she remembered, though not the source. There are some who bring a light so great to the world that even after they have gone, the light remains. Padme had always been one of those people to her. An inspiration, a legacy. And she'd loved her, she'd loved her more than her own family.
But love could never truly save and by associating so close to a Jedi perhaps it had been love that had doomed her and Anakin Skywalker both.
That was a name and a face she was only just recently beginning to remember, and the very thought filled her with a keen sort of jealousy.
Best to ignore that, for now.
Sabe had brought up Padme’s absolutely most favorite dinner and desserts, though as she stared at the table she’d laid out she wondered how much of it would go uneaten. Her own appetite was….
Nonexistent.
Sighing, Sabe texted Padme something simple and ominous; We need to talk about memories, I had dinner brought up, and then she waited.
It was indeed an ominous text. 'We need to talk' never translated any better way in Padme's experience, and the fact that they were doing it in Sabe's suite instead of out to dinner somewhere made it ring even more ominous than usual.
Padme Amidala had never backed down from an intimidating situation in her life, however. She made sure she was dressed in something comforting and soft, and swept into Sabe's rooms a few moments later.
She took in the table laden with all of her favorite things, and her eyebrows raised. "Well, this IS going to be a particularly ominous talk, isn't it?"
Comfortable and soft and yet somehow fashionable and god Padme was beautiful.
But she always was, that light in the darkness.
"I'm not dumping you, or anything," Sabe assured her. "Though you might get a little upset with me, I hope you understand I had my reasons."
She pulled out Padme's seat, "Let's have a bite to eat first."
Sometimes it was easy to read past the mask Sabe put on, and then there were the times where it was particularly hard. Padme hadn't exactly been expecting a break up dinner either, her feelings about their relationship had never included any doubts about the strength of their feelings - only how they were going to make it all work.
But she still felt relieved when she took a seat and started sorting various favorites into spoonfuls on her plate. "If you were dumping me I might have had to wear something more stunning to remind you why you love me so much," She teased. "But I will promise ahead of time not to scream at you until I've heard everything you have to say."
There was something that she had wanted to say, too. A feeling lurking in the back of her mind that someone in her past was also part of their dream lives, but that could wait. She pierced a roasted potato with a fork and popped it into her mouth, making a bit of a show at how she had now had a 'bite' to eat.
Sabe sighed, shaking her head with some amusement at Padme’s very pointed bite of a potato. But she took a seat herself, and took a very pointed bite of her own as she weighed what she had to say.
Their lives were always so much about misdirection and obfuscation that with Padme she wanted to be as blunt as possible. It wasn’t always something they could do, but in this, she thought she could.
“You remember that first day our marks burned in? I … saw something. It faded instantly leaving only a feeling behind, but it’s a feeling that only grew with each passing day. A certainty I believed even before the memory itself snapped into place…”
Pushing her fork at her plate, Sabe tried to make sense of it, as though she were scrying their future, “I saw … You were there, white flowers in your hair like that time in the lake. Laying … still, so very still. We walked with you, your handmaidens, we walked with you as Naboo mourned.”
Of course there had been no way to know what Sabe had to say, what she'd been holding back. Padme had thought it might have been some detail about the clandestine love affair they both must have remembered, but nothing like this.
Before she dropped it, she elected to put her fork down in one slow, careful movement. Her other hand had already gone unbidden up into her hair, curling around a few locks that had been going curlier and curlier lately - more like the hair she had in her memories. The flowers weren't there in that moment, of course, and there was no memory she could see in her own mind.
There wouldn't be, naturally. How could she remember something that happened after her death?
"We both have the flowers falling down our bodies... did whatever marked us always know what a cruel joke it was playing?"
Sabe hated that she had to say this, that it was necessary, almost as much as she’d hated that she’d had to keep it secret from her friend and lover. Especially that latter thing; to share what she’d shared with Padme while not telling her had felt … wrong.
So here they were, and the unfairness of it hung in the air. Sabe closed her eyes, hand rising to her chest and resting over her heart, “The flowers that symbolize your death flowing from my heart. Were it not so cruel it would be poetic.”
Opening her eyes, she took a long, steadying breath. “I knew eventually I’d have to find a way to tell you. But I wanted to … I’m sorry.”
Padme thought again about the flowers that fell down out of her hair… just as they had when they were young, and apparently the day she was buried. She chewed on her lower lip for a moment, trying to process something that felt completely incomprehensible. She could barely even summon any anger for Sabe. “If the position had been reversed… I do not think I could have told you right away, either. We do that, you and I. Keep our secrets closer than anything else, and for good reason. We are… spies and politicians and rebels.”
And the stakes were always higher in that galactic universe.
Her hands were only slightly shaking when she decided to pick her fork back up and try to work on their meal. The food was there, and it could be used as a comfort; It was better for it not to get too cold or go to waste.
She wasn’t sure she wanted to ask Sabe how it had happened.
That word. Rebel.
It struck a chord inside Sabe in a way that even spy did not. She spied, she was a spy, but more so she was a rebel. Though rebelling against what was a question she didn't have an answer for.
For a little while, the only sound was the scraping of forks against plates, until Sabe turned on some music just to have something to fill the air.
Most nights, she enjoyed the silence with Padme, but tonight it was somehow excruciating.
When she blinked next, her food was gone, and she sighed, "I should have been there, but I wasn't. I just wish I knew where I was."
“Doing something for me, I think. Something I asked of you. That seems to be the nature of us in that place.” Padme replied, not even having to give it much thought. Sabe was always willing to do anything at all that Padme asked of her. Padme knew the truth of that in her bones, as if it was written into the fabric of both of their universes.
It was because of that universal fact that she tried so hard not to ask too much.
“So many memories of my time in the senate, you’re nowhere to be found. I think even when I needed you the most; Whatever you were doing for me, it must have been vital to our work.”
What their work was, that was harder to say. But the word ‘rebel’, that chord definitely resonated.
Sabe didn’t feel like smiling, and so she didn’t. She liked to avoid wearing a mask around Padme, and it had been so difficult to keep that up with this secret. “I think you’re right. The only reason I wouldn’t be by your side is because you needed me elsewhere, more. I just …”
She lifted her eyes, gazing into Padme’s, “I’d do it here, too. If I had to.” She would just rather not and she fought with something inside of herself that prevented her from saying as much.
“I love you, Padme. I’d tear down empires for you.”
Padme had held the gaze of powerful politicians and extremely vicious enemies, always without shrinking. But some part of her wanted to shrink away from this level of devotion. It was the kind of love that lasted, the kind of love that would burn down cities if it had to. Had Anakin loved her like that?
She had a memory of him looking at her as she’d packed up her things for travel. Whatever was in that stare had made her tremble; But it wasn’t the same thing she saw in Sabe’s eyes. Anakin was reckless and dangerous… powerful, uncontrolled, with honestly dangerous ideas. Sabe was like the side of that coin that burned slower but hotter and in a far more controlled manner.
No less dangerous. Padme swallowed. “I think you did. And I know that you would. And I love you, too. But I hope that here in this reality we have a chance at some less unfortunate end. Let us… concentrate on tearing down smaller things. Otherwise there’s a chance that together we could set the entire world on fire.”
She paused, and added, “And I just want to love you. I just want to have that, at least for a little while. Before it gets embroiled in everything else that we do.”
Maybe it was a difference of direction as much as a long burn versus a fast one. Of recklessness versus control.
Sabe wouldn't like to think she had too much in common with Anakin, any more than she thought Anakin was actually all that good for Padme. But Padme had loved him, and he'd been a Jedi, and that was enough.
"We both know how much difference we can make at the ground level. I think sometimes we want to see that change happen quicker." That was how they ended up where they were, in fact. But there was something to say about slowing down a bit.
Sabe let out a breath and smiled cheekily, "Shall I pencil in some us time every day?"
Padme couldn’t help but grin in response, “Absolutely. We could start by sharing some dessert.”