FicWad

Additional Author's Notes: 1) Please recall that lengthy italicized passages signify memories.
2) Please keep in mind that this is a work of fiction. Padmé's many names and the traditions of her people are as much dictated by my own particular muse as by the rather scant information available about her and her people in the actual SW universe. In fact, one might also do well to keep this in mind when reading about the people (and world) of Alderaan . . .
3) Please keep in mind that words that appear Gaelic are meant as place-holders for non-Basic words uniquely characteristic of humans springing from one specific shared cultural background, and that the particulars of traditions in the planetary systems colonized by humans from that original specific cultural group are as much dictated by my muse as by the scant information available about such peoples/worlds/traditions in the SW universe, okay?
4) Due to the length of this specific memory, it has been divided in two parts. The scene picks up immediately in the next chapter!





She who was, in life, Padmé Amidala finds herself heaving yet another great mental sigh as she looks out upon Obi-Wan and Anakin - currently snuggled up in the almost cabin-sized bed that Anakin got one of the Pau'ans to help him smuggle into the renamed Soulful One (it had to be brought inside the ship in pieces, and it will have to be disassembled and taken out piecemeal as well if they ever want to remove it again. Although it has been bolted securely to one of the walls, it scarcely needs it, even for safety's safe. The enormous bed easily fills roughly three-fourths of the cabin, with the remainder being almost entirely filled, except for an exceedingly narrow path around three sides of the bed, by an extremely modest desk and chair, a pair of inset closets, the door out to the rest of the ship, and the door to the small refresher unit), kissing and caressing each other languorously in post-coital bliss, whispering to one another and laughing together as their hands and lips trace patterns that are somehow both idle and worshipful across each other's bodies. She knows that she has never known a love even as fraction as strong or as real as theirs, and she can no longer avoid acknowledging the fact that it is almost entirely her own fault. Much as she hates to admit it, in this one instance, her elder sister, Sola, has been proven entirely right: she has in essence wasted her life, spending all of her time worrying about the problems of other people - about one planet's or one people's disagreement with another; about whether one trading or commerce or corporate guild was acting fairly towards another system; and about one sector's dispute with another over being left out of some trade or business or corporate contract or another - with all of her energy being thrown outwards to try to make the lives of everyone else better, with nary a thought towards her own wants or needs or comforts.

She has missed out on her own life because she spent all of her time being so entirely focused on the needs of other beings, so hemmed in and bound about by the twin lashes of self-appointed duty and responsibility, that she had not even once, while still living, been able to allow herself to look beyond those high walls, and all for fear of finding . . . what, exactly? That she has failed to hold true to some impossible standard of selfless devotion to others? That she has essentially wasted the majority of her life in some vain pursuit of an ideal that is not only unrealistic but actually harmful, seeing as how it has all but crippled her, emotionally, and kept her from having anything approaching a normal life or even a chance at an actual relationship with another living being, one with roots that were not based in the perception of need or of duty (as was largely the case, she now understands, with her relationship with Anakin, who she thought had needed her and her love more than she needed to preserve her absolute dedication to duty . . . and who, she must admit, if she is being perfectly honest with herself, she had thought could act as an acknowledgment of her duty to herself and the stated need of her family, to see her happily settled down, without also in some way compromising her dedication to the responsibilities she had shouldered, in pursuing her career)? That she has failed in what should have been her most obvious obligation, that of her duty to herself, her responsibility to make the decisions (however hard they might be) that would have resulted in a fuller and more meaningful personal life, one that could have allowed her to balance a life for herself with the political profession she had chosen to follow, instead of being swallowed whole by that career? Sola is right: while she was still alive, she had been so busy being the self-appointed and solely indispensable guardian and champion and protector of the galaxy, of the rights and happiness and security and prosperity of any and all sentient beings, that she had forbidden herself from actually living.

To be perfectly frank, she had, in essence, fallen prey to the same age-old dilemma that has baffled and bothered and ultimately defeated so many good (or at least well-intended) people: that of the question of family versus career, of one's very real personal responsibility to oneself and one's loved ones (both actual blood relations and the friends who are as family by choice) versus one's duty to others, to the larger community of beings, the inevitable and inescapable strangers surrounding one on an everyday basis. And unfortunately she had, like so many others before her, fallen prey to the notion that her duty to the unspoken, unwritten societal contract that binds together all sentient beings on all worlds in an alliance of mutual aid and cooperation in some way outweighs her responsibility to both her loved ones and, more importantly, to herself. Rather than run the risk (which she, in her arrogance, had assumed that her sister, Sola, had fallen prey to) of becoming one of those misguided beings who live solely for their families, she had rushed headlong in precisely the other direction . . . and fallen squarely into the opposing trap, wherein she existed only for others and took no time for a life of her own. What she managed to entirely miss in her blindly stubborn and reckless pursuit of a self-defined selfless commitment to politics, as she can so plainly see now (when it is too late to do much of anything about it), is the unavoidably real and dangerously indispensable need for balance in one's life. She had failed to balance her responsibility to herself and her loved ones with her duty to others and her chosen profession. Those last two things - her duty to others and her chosen profession - had received roughly ninety-five percent of all of her time and effort and care and attention, while the other two - her very real responsibility to herself and her obligation to her loved ones - had received probably less than five percent of her notice, and even then that five percent had been largely only begrudgingly given, or else given when there was no other choice in the matter, as during that enforced period of hiding on Naboo, when she and Anakin had visited her family and reassured them that she was still alive and well before retreating to the Lake Country.

Too late, she remembers - and finally understands - the wisdom hidden in the words of a young Jedi Padawan by the name of Obi-Wan Kenobi, who, on a limping flight from an occupied planet in the Mid Rim to a rough desert planet in the Outer Rim, had taken pity on an apparently lowly handmaid from Naboo, plainly distracted half out of her mind with worry and terror, and allowed her to engage him in a conversation that had ended up being almost as much actual debate and outright instruction as it had been simple discussion. With another enormous mental sigh, she remembers -

- standing at one of the ship's transparisteel viewports, she looks unseeingly out onto the streaking starlines of hyperspace, her shoulders slumped beneath the heavy velvet of her flame-colored handmaiden disguise, body huddled in upon itself, cold in a way that has very little to do with the actual temperature of the air on the ship. A voice - soft, melodious, courteous, and oh so very longed for, though she has had occasion to hear it only a few times, as yet - from behind her startles her out of her dark reverie, his concerned murmur of, "Miss Padmé?" causing her to gasp and startle, in spite of herself, her mind immediately tumbling away from her worries to arrive at the question of how in the worlds he has recognized her, with her back turned to him and clad in the same concealing, impersonal drape of fire-colored finery that all the handmaids are currently still wearing . . . and whether this means that the hope now stirring frantically in her heart has any basis in reality, or is just one last bit of foolishness from a girl's daydreams, a lingering effect of starlight and rainbows in one who can no longer afford to allow herself to be or behave as though she still were either young or naive.

"Jedi Kenobi! Forgive me, I - I was a million miles away. You startled me." She blushes at the inanity of her words, unable to meet his sympathetic gaze, until a hand - so very light and gentle, as though he were afraid that she might shy away from him, like a startled bird - comes to rest on her shoulder, his touch so warm and concerned that she feels the heat from his skin all the way down from her left shoulder to the very core of her being. Meeting his eyes - so very blue, so very deep and mysterious and beautiful, as hypnotically changeful and yet eternal as water - she finds herself admitting, in a rapid, anxious stream of low words, as though speaking them quietly can somehow make the fears they give shape to less real or protect her in some way from the embarrassment of sharing so much of her private thoughts with this earnest young Jedi Padawan, with his kind eyes and solemn smile, "I am just so worried for Naboo! My people are peaceful. We are unused to war or privation. With the Trade Federation blockade in place and the Viceroy himself entrenched on the planet - "

"You should not worry so, milady Padmé. All will come right in the end. You will see. The Jedi Order knows of the illegal and forceful occupation of Naboo by the Trade Federation now, and even if the Senate is slow to act, the Jedi will not fail to protect you and the people of Naboo against this enemy. It is our duty and privilege to protect the rights and freedoms of the peoples of the galaxy against just such transgressions. And in any case," Obi-Wan adds, a small smile playing at the corners of his mouth (tugging at the edges of his lips and effortlessly commanding her attention, until she feels as if she were staring openly at those lips and must look away, for fear of revealing herself), "I thought we had agreed, earlier, that I was Obi-Wan and you were Padmé and this business of titles would not come between us."

"Sir Bendu," she whispers helplessly, instinctively seeking refuge in the oldest and most formal of titles. "You do me too much honor," she adds, knowing that she is blushing again and hating her fair skin for giving her away.

He simply blinks at her, in mild astonishment, before tilting his head inquiringly to one side, with a small half-smile. "How can I do you too much honor? I merely give you my name and the right to use it, Padmé. It is a simple gift, one of those small, civilizing gestures we present to one another as a sign of our trust and goodwill. You have given me your name and the right to use it, and so I have returned your gift with my own, humble though it may be." With another small and slightly crooked smile, Obi-Wan tightens his hand slightly upon her shoulder, his gesture - clearly meant to reassure her - instead making her feel oddly lightheaded and weak in the knees. "You are dwelling on things that you need not concern yourself over. Come, Padmé. Please. Come and sit with me awhile. My Master has declared himself in need of privacy for meditation, so that he can seek after a deeper, more complete understanding of the Force, and I must admit that I am as yet unable to seek to model myself after his wisdom," Obi-Wan grimaces ever so slightly at that, obviously embarrassed at the admission of his own body's lingering hurt, though frankly she considers it a miracle that he is still on his feet at all (and, in the back of her mind, wonders just how badly he would have to be hurt before he would cease to feel a need to apologize for his weakness). Upon first landing on Naboo, Obi-Wan Kenobi had taken a blaster bolt shot directly to the body, the deadly energy of which he was only just able to disperse and deflect from a killing blow, and the lingering pain from that energy blast has been causing him to experience a disruption in his connection to the Force ever since. She knows this because she had discovered him soon after their near-escape from Naboo, collapsed and in convulsions in one of the ship's hallways, and he had been forced to tell her what was wrong in order to keep her from running for his Master immediately, for help. Moved by his determination to stay by his Master's side and see the mission through, in spite of both his injury and his weakened connection to the Force, she had agreed to keep silent about the entire incident. Apparently, her silence has made Obi-Wan sure enough of his trust in her to make him believe her worthy of knowing about his continued weakness, despite his discomfort with the subject - in that way honoring her far more (and much more than she is certain she could ever deserve) than he likely realizes. In any case, he seems not to notice her wide eyes or deepening flush as he smiles at her openly and asks, "Take pity on a poor young Padawan and help to fill his empty time with your presence?"

Unable to speak for fear of stammering and making a fool of herself, she simply ducks her head, once, in mute acquiescence and allows him to lead her to a place a little further along in the ship's corridor, where an intimately-sized (large enough to hold two humans or two roughly humanoid-sized beings comfortably, but certainly no more than four beings at once, and only if those four beings were willing to crowd up close around one another and invade each other's space) semi-private nook has been inset into the wall of the little ship, its slightly convex clear transparisteel viewport somehow not nearly so starkly cold with a curving line of comfortably cushioned benches placed invitingly before it. Feeling greatly daring, she allows Obi-Wan to hand her down into one of those benches, the bare soft skin of her right palm lingering perhaps just a fraction of a heartbeat longer than strictly necessary against his lightsaber-calloused right palm, before she raises her eyes to him and pushes the concealing drape of the uniform's over-robe's deep cowl impatiently back, shoving until both the heavy velvet fabric of the outer robe's cowl and the inner layer of snugly fitted septsilk hood from the underdress fall down around her neck, her hasty motion freeing her hair from its loose bundle against the back of her neck until it tumbles, unrestrained, in a softly curling cloud around her face and shoulders, wavy from its time bound back beneath those two hoods. "What would you have of me, Obi-Wan?" she asks then, boldly meeting his eyes.

"Aside from some of your time? And your goodwill and friendship, I hope," he adds, his raised eyebrows (having both lifted slightly at her question) settling back into position as he makes himself comfortable on the bench beside her (so close to her that she can feel the heat of his body and smell the faintly musky scent of his clean flesh, like a warm and softly scented wave lapping all up against her right side and invading her senses. So close to her that their knees are practically touching, because of the way their bodies are arranged on the bench, turned out towards one another so that the lower halves of their extremities are much closer together than the rest of their bodies. So close that her head is swimming at the nearness of him, her mouth dry and her palms suddenly cold and clammy, while her heart pounds with almost painful swiftness, as though trying to fight its way out of her chest). "If it would not be too much to ask, then perhaps a discussion that does not revolve around either the Force, advice to live in the now that directly contradicts the teachings of the Grand Master of the Order, proper lightsaber care and technique, the perils both of youthful impetuosity and impatience with others and of the trap of feeling too much for others, or the supposed utter lack of need for students to question their teachers, even if said mentors are being a bit more cryptically aphoristic in their sayings than the wee little brains of their poor students are equipped to deal with, if it pleases you," he explains, voice growing progressively dryer and more self-deprecating until finally his carefully ticked off list of proscribed topics of discussions startles a small but genuine laugh out of her, at which point he, in turn, all but beams, his teeth flashing at her in a wide, delighted grin.

"Very well then, friend Obi-Wan," she declares, somehow finding both the strength and self-possession to smile back, playing along with him and giving him her best mock-regal head bow, "since it pleases me to sit and talk with you for a time, then perhaps you could be so kind as to share with me some of your wisdom?"

"My wisdom?" Those mercurial blue eyes blink at her in obvious shock and perhaps just the barest hint of hurt, so plainly astonished by the notion that someone - that anyone, much less Padmé Naberrie of Naboo - could consider him capable of possessing both enough intelligence and common sense to qualify as true wisdom that his first reaction is to search her intently (his sweeping, penetrating gaze inadvertently causing alternating flashes and heat and cold to wrack her body) for some sign that she is teasing him. "Do you not mean instead to ask for the wisdom of my Order, the teachings of thousands upon thousands of generations of Jedi Bendu Masters?" he asks, eyes narrowing ever so slightly, clearly not yet convinced that her question has been given in earnest, despite her unflinching and open gaze and the careful stillness of her body.

The sheer, unadulterated anger that she experiences in that moment - not at Obi-Wan Kenobi, not by any stretch of the imagination, but instead for those who have taught him to so completely devalue his own worth that he can automatically assume that anyone seeking to ask for his counsel must simply be playing a trick on him, having a laugh at his expense - is at least equal, in terms of pure outrage and indignation, to what she feels whenever she remembers the ridiculous demands of the Trade Federation Viceroy. Eyes flashing and chin lifting automatically in a proudly defiant gesture even as her back snaps ramrod straight and, all unknown to her, her voice takes on the cold, oddly flat, unaccented cadence of the Queen of Naboo, she declares, "One would openly seek the cryptic counsel of such mysterious Masters if that is the kind of cold comfort which one wishes to armor oneself about with. No. One asks, instead, for the wisdom of Obi-Wan Kenobi. You have declared yourself a friend, sir," she continues, voice and manner softening a trifle at the sight of his wide, startled eyes. "I would consider my friendship well repaid with some heartfelt advice."

"Advice, I am assuredly able to give. Wisdom, however . . . " Obi-Wan's voice trails off into a painful silence before he finally shrugs slightly (an awkward, jerky motion that - perhaps because he has, until then, been holding himself so carefully and completely rigidly still - more closely resembles the motion of a marionette on strings than it does the natural movement of a human being) and hesitantly offers (head turned just enough out to his right so that his downcast eyes can remain trained firmly on the floor, his entire mien all but screaming diffidence, learned acquiescence to a greater authority, and the kind of unquestioning submission that she hates with every fiber of her being, having come to associate such totality of yielding with the deliberate breaking of a thinking, feeling being's spirit by another), voice so soft that she must lean forward in order to catch all of his words, "Well, I will do my best, milady, but I make no promises."

"Your best is better than the promises of Masters, my friend," she recklessly declares, her words making him gasp and start away from her slightly, as though she has spoken something blasphemous. Now thoroughly furious for his sake, she reaches out and places a hand on his left shoulder, the long, dagged split sleeve of her outer robe falling away from her arm and trailing down across his chest in a blaze of scarlet and gold. This time, he truly does flinch, the rigidly held muscles of his shoulder all jumping beneath her hand as though his body has steeled itself against a blow that he is certain must be coming. The involuntary reaction brings tears to her eyes, and she is forced to blink several times, with great rapidity, to keep those tears from spilling over. "Obi-Wan. My friend. Please," she says, deliberately making her voice just as soft and beguiling as possible, as she would in attempting to capture the attention and trust of a small, frightened, wild creature. "You are obviously a brave and loyal young man, a stalwart and exceedingly worthy companion to your Master and a treasure of inestimable value to your Order, and I am certain that you are more than equal to the task of dispensing a little wisdom to one who is as small and unimportant as Padmé Naberrie of Naboo. Please, my friend. Share with me just a little bit of your wisdom, and help me to quiet my more girlish and naive fears and impulses."

"Milady - " The word is mostly composed of a gasp of sheer incredulity (all breath and air, with hardly any sound to it at all) and Obi-Wan's eyes, jerked up from the floor to meet her gaze more out of pure shock than any intention, on his part, are so dark and wide and achingly blue that they appear blind, like portals opened upon an empty sky in that narrow window of time between dusk and full night. She feels the impact of those eyes, emptied of everything but shock, all the way down to her toes, like the jolt of an electric shock, and it takes everything within her to keep herself from reacting, certain that anything short of a calm and unflinching meeting of his gaze will be taken either as a negative sign or some show of proof that she has, after all, merely been kidding him.

"My full birth name is Padmé Sharian Naberrie. The shadow name I was given as a baby, as is traditional to fool any wandering spirit who might seek to possess my body, is Sabia, and there are those whom I count among the dearest and longest-held of my friends and family who still sometimes call me by that name," she quietly informs him, making sure to pronounce her shadow name properly (so that it almost sounds as if there were a "v" instead of a "b" at the center of it) and holding his uncannily blind gaze unflinchingly and unblinkingly (least a blink be mistaken for a flinch) all the while. "The blood name I was given, as is traditional when a girl-child of Naboo comes to the full flowering of her womanhood, is Arianeira," she continues to explain, carefully pronouncing all six syllables. "I own but one other name, as a title taken by route to signify my position within the court of Naboo, though I must admit still to hoping to be able to one day place another's surname beside my own, to show that I have become one-who-is-two, as is also traditional on Naboo. I swear to you now, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Bendu Padawan of the Jedi Order, upon all the names I own and all that I am, that I am both earnest in seeking after your wisdom and certain that you are more than worthy and wise enough to dispense such advice to one such as I am. Will you not take pity on me, Obi-Wan, am'chara, and give to me thus of your time and presence and patient wisdom?" she calmly asks him, deliberately using a not completely translatable bit of Naboo vernacular (which, on her world, in the small and relatively isolated mountain village that she still, in her heart of hearts, thinks of as home, roughly means the same as "friend," "heart's partner," and "soul's guardian") as an impetus to startle him out of his all-encompassive shock.

"What . . . " Obi-Wan gets only so far before his throat abruptly seems to close up on him and he has to pause, take a deep (and visibly meant to be calming) breath, and begin again. And even so, his words are but the breathiest whisper, the merest sigh of sound, as though something within him is so ashamed to be speaking them at all that he physically cannot muster more than the quietest exhalation of sound with which to give them breath. "What would you have of me, Padmé Sharian Naberrie - once called Sabia, also named Arianeira, and possessor also of a route title, to signify some certain position at court - of Naboo?" His eyes, though perhaps not quite so seemingly blind, are still dark and mysterious as they look steadily upon her, and there is a quiet, unspoken fear lurking at the back of them that she cannot stand to see, one that she aches to erase, one that makes her quietly and completely (and perhaps unfairly, given that she knows so little of either the man or the time he has spent with his frighteningly self-effacing and far too self-doubting young Padawan) loathe a certain Jedi Master by the name of Qui-Gon Jinn.

"Obi-Wan, am'chara, what in the galaxy is it that encourages such beings as the Viceroy of the Trade Federation to believe that they can not only behave in such an evil manner towards such people as the residents of Naboo, but that their actions will not be seen by others as evil?" The question is meant to be light-hearted enough to startle Obi-Wan out of his solemnity and chase away that awful fear hovering in the back of his eyes, but to her surprise she finds her words growing both more plaintive and more aggrieved the more she speaks, until she finally reaches the end of the question and her voice is quivering outright with all of the suppressed sorrow and outraged anger and uncomprehending anguish of an idealistic and loving young child who still can't quite bring herself to acknowledge, much less pretend to understand, what manner of chaos or darkness or simple self-centered blindness it is within supposedly sentient beings that drives them to willfully harm other such sentient beings.

Blinking as though he has suddenly returned, with a jarring thump, to his body from some vast distance of time or space, Obi-Wan looks upon her and frowns ever so slightly, as though truly seeing her for the first time in a great while. "Your question asks after the nature and root cause of good and evil - the meaning and purpose of life, as it were - as though it were a riddle that the ancients might have writ in stone for those who follow after to discover and unravel. The galaxy has no purpose. It exists. It needs no greater meaning. It is the various sentient beings of the galaxy who require purpose and reasons to prompt or explain - and perhaps even excuse - their actions." There is a strange quality to Obi-Wan's voice, as though he is speaking words which he has heard repeatedly in lectures or read in primers many times before without ever fully understanding and is only now, in the reciting of them to her, completely coming to comprehend.

That odd quality to his voice provides her with just enough of a distraction to focus on to keep herself from bursting into pained and fretful sobbing. "But what about good and evil?" she demands, focusing intently on the increasingly perplexed look in Obi-Wan's eyes to keep herself from reacting badly to his words. "They exist, do they not? You are a Jedi Bendu Padawan, one who clings to the light of order: you cannot possible deny that good and evil exist, in the galaxy!"

"They exist, Padmé, as does the material that makes up the galaxy. But sentient beings are the ones who ascribe values and moral judgments to certain actions. You may as well ask why a thinking, feeling being ever does anything, as ask why good and evil exist in the galaxy," Obi-Wan explains, his eyes and voice suddenly very soft and sympathetic, as though he has suddenly come to the conclusion that he is dealing with someone in a state almost too fragile to bear the simple, unvarnished truth.

She resists the urge to stamp a foot only because she is sitting in a bench with a seat so deep that she would have to scoot herself forward almost to its edge in order to be able to bring her heel down firmly against the ship's deck - and doing so would doubtlessly bring the entire lower half of her right leg in contact with his body, and she is not sure that she could keep herself from reacting noticeably to that, even with all the layers of her uniform and his between them. Instead, growing frustrated, she snaps, "You are skirting the question, am'chara, not answering it!" her voice firm and showing just enough annoyance and impatience for her anger to be obvious.

"And the question is?" he merely calmly asks, with a slight quirk of his right eyebrow.

"How the Trade Federation could do something so evil to the people of Naboo and not even seem to realize that what they are doing is evil!" she snaps, again almost stamping a foot as her balled fists curl uselessly at her sides, itching to plant themselves on her hips in a combat-ready stance that, unfortunately, would look quite ridiculous in a sitting position.

"When you ask such a question, Padmé, you not only place absolute values of your own devising upon such actions, you also make it clear that you have already decided that for the Trade Federation to control the space around Naboo is evil. But do you ask whether it is good for the humans of Naboo to have absolute control over Naboo and the space around Naboo?" His face is serious as he asks this, but she can practically hear a gentle, chiding smile in the softness of his voice, and only a pure act of will keeps her from leaping furiously to her feet.

"What are you saying to me?" she instead cries, spreading her hands wide to show her bewilderment. "That such control is an illusion? How could you possibly justify such a claim, when I have seen cities fall and innocent people - not just soldiers, but unarmed residents, innocent bystanders - die, in such a struggle for control?"

"First of all, there is no such thing as an absolute 'innocent.' We are all guilty of at least one trifling wrong or another. Second of all, reality does not require justification for it to be so," Obi-Wan immediately replies, his voice a trifle sharper than before. "The illusion is not that control by either force is inherently more good or right or orderly than control by the other. The illusion is that any/ kind of absolute control can /be what is generally thought of as good. In the full balance of the Force, total domination by either good or evil, light or dark, order or chaos, can only lead to death of one kind or death of another. There is darkness, evil, chaos, call it what you will, in all things, in all lives. So, too, is there good, order, light, call it whatever you wish. The trick is to find a natural balance that works, to the greatest degree and most obvious benefit, for all beings, not to force absolute conformation to some narrow and impossible ideal that is, in the end, no more than an artificial construct inspired by one specific sentient being's personal concept of morality."

"'Artificial construct'?!" she merely snaps, aghast. "But you've said that good and evil exist in the galaxy! Are you now renouncing your word? Because if you agree that good and evil exist in the galaxy, then you must/ allow that they have /some reason for existing!"

"Oh, must I, indeed?" Obi-Wan's right eyebrow snaps upward, at that, with all the vigor and violence of a suddenly rearing gualaar. "Then tell me, Padmé - known also by many other names - of Naboo, why is it that any sentient being ever does anything?" he demands, eyes narrowing intently and leaning forward on the bench just enough for the edge of his outer robe to touch and tangle with the fabric of her overgown.

She can, perhaps, be forgiven, thus, for the barest hint of a stammer on the word, "Why?" Recovering her poise after only a few heartbeats more, she frowns at him, demanding, "What do you mean, why? Why, because she, or he, or it, wants to. Or has to," she adds after another slight hesitation, her frown deepening a trifle.

"And if that being refuses?"

"Someone else could use force."

"Ah." There is an air of almost gentle amusement around him, then, as though she has somehow inadvertently said or done something that he finds funny. Before his soft smile can get her back up, though, he quietly asks, "And is it very likely that this other being could, in some way, work the muscles of the first being's body, against that first being's will?"

"If that other being were strong and trained in the ways of the Force? Then, yes!"

"Padmé, have I ever given you reason to believe that I could overpower not only your considerable will but also the control of your own body, and make you dance to a tune of my choosing as though you were naught but a puppet on strings?" Obi-Wan merely asks, his voice very soft and very kind indeed.

Biting back the most obvious and indelicate response (that he would not need to use any kind of force, whether of the Force or the product of his own bodily strength, to make her dance willingly to whatever tune he might wish to call), she stubbornly insists, "I have seen you and Master Qui-Gon use the Force to affect objects at least as large and heavy as a human being."

"And do you imagine that using the Force to affect what amounts to a concentrated and directed application of force - the equivalent of a strong shove or throwing motion - on another being or object's material form is in any way the same as insinuating oneself into another being's body and using naught but one's will alone to cause that other being's body to move about and speak and behave in a manner that is dictated solely by that first being's will?"

His eyes are so soft and kind and deep that Padmé feels as if she might tumble out of herself and into him in much the same manner that he is speaking of. With a small frisson of pleasure that she can only hope he will mistake for a shiver of repugnance at the thought of such a complete and total bodily invasion and subversion of will, she whispers, "No, Obi-Wan." But then, her voice firming up slightly, she declares, "I can see where you are going with this, am'chara. I am not blind. You are telling me that every being has the choice whether or not to act. But Obi-Wan, that is cruel! What if children, or a family, or an entire world, will starve to death because of some being's chosen action?"

"It is still only a choice, Padmé, and it is a choice that must be made by those whom you say will starve as well as it must be made by the one whose decision you say will inflict the privation that can lead to famine." His voice and manner is so quietly, almost apologetically, sympathetic that it almost seems a crime to take offense at his actual words.

Almost.

"Are there no higher values, then? Is this the wisdom that the Jedi Order teaches to its initiates? That there is no difference between a being who is consecrated to good, to the light, to order and peace and prosperity, and one who is dedicated to evil, to darkness and chaos and suffering?" she demands of him furiously, leaning forward on the bench and for a wonder hardly noticing it when her action brings her knee into firm contact with his shin. "Is that what you are telling me, Obi-Wan? That there is no difference between a being who is coerced or tricked into unwise and perhaps even unkind acts and one who performs them purposefully, even gladly?"

"Of course there is a difference, Padmé," Obi-Wan immediately responds, his tone of voice both surprised and concerned as he reaches forward and places a kind, gentle hand on her right knee - in the process bringing their legs into firm contact, his knees spreading slightly apart to bracket her legs, the points of contact all up and down the outside of her legs and that one firm touch to the top of her right knee flaring through her body like the touch of a thousand live wires, waves of heat and energy passing into her body just from those innocuous few touches as though he has willingly and knowingly touched her, skin to skin, in several far more intimate places. She cannot keep herself from shivering, her body vibrating like a plucked bow, and a small furrow carves itself into existence between Obi-Wan's brows, at that, his hand tightening momentarily upon her knee as though he fears that her involuntary movement is a motion presaging a wish to rise up abruptly from the bench and flee from him and his words. "But Padmé, you must know that it is no difference to the galaxy itself - only to thinking, feeling beings."

"Then if the galaxy does not care, why should any being ever not do whatever is most pleasing to that particular being? For what reason should anyone try to do good deeds? To what purpose should any people ever come to cooperate enough with one another to attempt to build a functioning society that can better the lives of all by limiting a few of the more harmful actions of all? Why, then, should anyone ever have reason to care for another living being, Obi-Wan? The galaxy does not care. Why, then, should we?" There are tears crowding her eyes again, and she can feel the sob pressing against the back of her throat, wanting to well up from a place deep within her, and her trembling, this time, is due as much to her despair as to his innocent touches.

With his right hand still resting (in what he doubtlessly believes is a comforting manner) on her right knee, Obi-Wan reaches out with his left hand and touches her fact, lifting her chin with his fingertips just the slightest bit, until the tears she has been trying to restrain spill down over her cheeks. "Either selfishness or selflessness will destroy a being, Padmé. If a soul is too selfish, thinking only of personal ends and desires, and should that being live long enough, none will support him and many will strive to tear him down. To survive, then, one must become so strong and so heartless that neither love nor affection could or would desire to reach such a being. And in the end, such a being is no longer a person as sane, sentient beings would define, but rather a soulless and ravening machine, like the engines on this ship when the power is running but the drive is not engaged, taking in energy but producing no useful work. In the same manner, a person who is too selfless is blown hither and yon forever at the direction of others' needs, for there are always more needs in this wide galaxy than even the most charitable of beings could ever hope to address. Should a being be strong enough to address the most worthy and pressing of needs, then she will either bleed to death slowly from the many cutting demands placed upon her or else lose all warmth and life in an increasingly mechanical quest to fulfill all the galaxy's endless needs. And when that happens, Padmé, such a being will become so selfless that she, too, is ultimately no more than another selfish soul - one devoted solely to her quest for a perfection of absolute selflessness, performing no action but that it will not add in some manner to her personal elevation of being." His voice is so softly modulated, kind and refined and the very epitome of civilized and mannered grace, that it is entirely at odds with the unvarnished and unyielding meaning of his words, and that, more than anything else, is what pushes her past the limits of her self-control and allows the sob that has been building up at the back of her throat to escape her. His hand is oddly gentle as it rises from her chin to her face, his lightsaber-calloused fingers delicately tracing the tracks of her tears until he can catch them on his fingertips and brush them away from her skin. Yet, in spite of his obvious care and sympathy, he does not allow her sorrow to silence him. "This is one of the first lessons that we learn, Padmé, as younglings in the crèche. Any being who would live a meaningful life without an unwavering trust in the Force to help guide him or her or it must struggle forever between selfishness and selflessness, always questioning the motivations for actions. If that being gives up this struggle, then she is allowing others to determine the meaning and purpose of her life. She may not even be aware that she has relinquished the struggle, for those others may, in point of fact, represent a belief in something that she finds better and higher than the supposed normal walk of life, and so she will follow their rules with great relief and fervor. These rules can be of any type - whether based upon emotion or logic, morality or aesthetics, or some wholly personal and irrational code of reasoning, it matters naught. But the Jedi Masters have long observed, and so passed on to their students, that most sentient beings who give up that struggle question why life, in general, as well as why their lives, in particular, have no greater meaning . . . especially when troubles befall them. In truth, for life to remain true, to be full of personal growth and vitality instead of a static and stagnant shadow of living, there is no other way than that of unending and solitary struggle for personal balance. Even if another were to wish to do such a thing, that being could not save you from this struggle any more than one people, one culture or group or society, could truly save another. Salvation must always come from the soul and the self. It can never be forced and it can never be given away or simply taught, from one being to the next, like a piece of route knowledge. Each individual must find the will and the way to balance such things as what is and what is desired to be against what is necessary for the self and what is right for others. The struggle is unending because growth never ceases so long as life truly remains within the body . . . and true life cannot exist without growth, which cannot exist without struggle. The path is a circular one, in a way, and it is one that each individual must ultimately learn to tread alone. Others can seek to lend helping hands along the way and an individual can of course choose to lean upon such others in the pursuit of that path, but it is the individual alone who must make the decision whether or not to take those offerings and who must determine when such a course might be permissible or even for the best . . . and who must also learn to recognize when taking such apparent aid might not ultimately lead to more harm - by causing one to place too much power in the hands of others and so lead to an eventual accidental abandonment of the path of personal struggle for balance and therefore growth and so also wisdom and meaning - than it might lead to good."

"You - you are not being terribly cheerful, am'chara. Your philosophy doesn't offer a great deal of comfort," she finally manages to whisper, after much effort, locking the sobs that want to well up from deep within her determinedly back behind her teeth but unable to keep herself from pressing in a little closer to him, her lower body scooting further forward between his spread legs and her cheek turning until she is practically nuzzling up against his palm.

"Ah. But you did not ask for comfort, am'chara," Obi-Wan merely reminds her, his voice speaking the word that names her the closest friend of his heart and the most loyal protector of his soul as though he had been born in the same small village that had hosted her own birthing. "You asked me for some of my wisdom, Padmé. And wisdom is seldom comforting, because so much of what sentient beings find comforting is nothing more than pure illusion," he adds with a quiet sigh, at last simply reaching out to her and enfolding her protectively in his arms, pulling her bodily across the bench to him until she is draped half across his lap, with her lower legs dangling past his left knee, clearly convinced that her trembling and abortive tears are signs of a much more deeply seated sorrow and anger and that she needs to have a better reason than hard truth alone to let those emotions out.

Melting unresistingly into his arms, feeling at once electrified and terrified by his press of his body (all unyielding planes and hard muscle, for all of his gentle care with her) all around and against her, she releases what little is left of her control and buries her face into the crook of his right shoulder, her arms winding around his back and her fingers digging into the layers of clothing separating his skin from hers as she sobs - half out of actual anguish and indignation at his words, and half simply out of frustration, at being so very close to him and yet still unable to truly touch/ him, to actually reach him through that mask of Jedi serenity - against the heavy material of his outer robe and the warm skin of his neck, letting him rock her in his arms as one might do for a fretful child, unable to bring herself to protest even that indignation since, after all, it feels so incredibly and completely /good, to be held and rocked and comforted by him. The sensation of Obi-Wan's right arm, locked with a careful but immobile strength about her waist, and of his left arm, wound similarly around her back so that his hand can spread itself across the back of her skull, his fingers threading delicately through her heavy brown hair as he cradles her head down against him, are like nothing she has ever experienced before. Even if she were to fight against him with all of her not inconsiderable (thanks to the instruction she has received from the captain of the royal guard, as part of her "handmaiden" training) strength and skill, she knows, instinctively, that she could not free herself from his grasp, did he truly wish to keep hold of her. Such is the power that he could, conceivably, bring to bear against her, without even having to call upon the Force for aid. The thought is both frightening and strangely exhilarating, and she finds herself clinging to him all the more tightly in the wake of the full-body shiver that follows on the heels of that particular realization, as if she were adrift in a strange, stormy sea and only his presence could keep her safely afloat.

She has a terrible inkling that she is acting like either a spoiled child or one of the weak-willed and irrational beings Obi-Wan has been talking about, someone who has allowed emotion to rule the whole of her life, but she cannot seem to bring herself to truly care so long as Obi-Wan continues to hold her and rock her within his arms - especially not now that his cradling hand has begun to move on her, caressing her hair and back with a slow, rhythmic stroke that, despite being clearly meant to have a calming effect, induces entirely the opposite reaction from her body, which first shudders violently and then burrows in even closer to him, pressing herself more fully and firmly up against him, the motions all occurring entirely independent of any actual thought. As she clings, shaking and sobbing, to him, holding on with all of her strength, an even more horrible thought flits briefly across the surface of her mind - namely, that she is taking terrible advantage of him, of his concern for her and his kindness, in behaving this way - but the thought soon skitters away, like a shy animal, and she cannot quite muster up enough willpower or attention to seek after it, once it has gone again. Another short-lived thought - this time of what an absolute sight they would doubtlessly look, to anyone who might happen to stumble upon their little alcove at just that precise moment in time, what with her hanging upon him, sobbing, draped shamelessly over his shoulder and lap, and him cradling her gently, his left hand moving in what she is certain is, on his part, entirely unconsciously sensuous rhythmic strokes across her hair and back - manages to prompt a brief (and ultimately once again producing precisely the wrong effect, at least on her part) period of squirming, as she tries to struggle ashamedly away from him. But in answer Obi-Wan merely curls in around her more fully, his head pressing down against her's, and croons a soft, unintelligible reassurance into her hair that makes her sob with need and cling to him again, just as tightly as she ever had before.

The one thought that lingers long enough to leave any kind of impression on her is that she has (despite her best efforts to guard herself against just such a distraction and potential liability, ever since that near-disastrous abortive relationship with Ian Lago) clearly fallen in love with this young man, this loyal and brave and kind and funny and wise and inexplicably self-deprecatory Jedi Bendu Padawan by the name of Obi-Wan Kenobi, and that he obviously has no idea whatsoever about either how she feels or just how completely and entirely desirable he is. An odd, strangled noise - half ironic laugh and half despairing cry - escapes from her at that particular realization, but not even that knowledge is enough of a goad to make her let go of him, and so all it accomplishes is to prompt yet another indistinct soft croon of reassurance from Obi-Wan (who, she is surprised to note, doesn't seem discomforted by either her tears or by the way she is clinging to him, though perhaps that is as much a result of his own pain and exhaustion as anything). Defeated, unable to be moved by thoughts of either sensibility or propriety, duty or danger, ethics or morality or indeed anything at all, even the obvious lack of awareness on Obi-Wan's part as to what is actually happening between them, she finally relaxes into his embrace, letting his gentle rocking motion and that stroking hand lull and soothe her until her sobs finally trail away into silence and her desperate hold on him eases into something more like the loose, languorous embrace of one who is near to sleep.

It is Obi-Wan's voice, once again quietly self-deprecating, that brings her fully around again. "Are you feeling a little better now? I am sorry to have made you cry. I warned you that I had no wisdom that was not of my Order to share, Padmé. But perhaps this has been for the best. You seem to have needed a reason to cry. Had you not yet allowed yourself time to mourn for what has happened to Naboo?"

"No time to cry. Too many things to do - too many details to plan - and not enough time for all that needed done, much less for tears. Anyway, better to wait until it's all over, when I'll know for sure how bad it has been and what exactly it is that I'm mourning, than to cry now and then keep crying over every little new thing," she simply sighs back, too tired even to shrug, words slightly muffled because she is still leaning against the crook of his neck and shoulder.

"It is no weakness to show grief, Padmé, or to lean on the strength of those who surround us in our times of sorrow," Obi-Wan replies, his tone gently chiding.

"Just as it is no weakness to show hurt, from an actual wound?"

Obi-Wan flinches as though she has struck him, and for several long moments, while he remains still and silent, panic floods her system, rapidly banishing that sweet, lingering feeling of boneless lassitude. She is about to push up away from his chest when he finally speaks, his voice low and rapid and toneless, as though repeating something that he has heard so many times that the words have ceased to have meaning or significance, other than for the pain that they bring him. "I wish too much for others to be happy. I want too much for others to think well of me. And so I try too hard to please. It is my most grievous failing. It is the flaw that nearly sent me to the Agri-Corps. It is the reason why Master Jinn almost did not choose me for a Padawan. A Jedi must always obey the will of the Force. A Jedi cannot be distracted by the needs or desires or hopes or expectations or emotional states of others. A Jedi cannot want to please other beings. A Jedi is a willing vessel of the Force and therefore a servant of all the beings of the galaxy. A Jedi cannot put the wants or the happiness or the safety of one being or of one group of beings above that of all others or the will of the Force. A Jedi must know unfailing justice and limitless compassion for all beings, not just for a chosen few. Commitment to any being or item or idea other than the voice and will of the Force is not only a violation of the Jedi Code: it is a dangerous distraction that bleeds away strength and purity of purpose, shifting focus off of what is necessary, what is needed, for the greater good, and onto what is merely selfishly desired by the one, the two, the few, or even the misguided many. A Jedi cannot flinch away from what is necessary just because it may not be pleasing to some or what some may expect of him. A Jedi cannot willingly fail to act on what is needful just because it may cause others to lower or loose their good opinion of him. Too much depends on the ability of a Jedi to focus - to be able to recognize the greater good; to know what is needful to bring that about; and to have the unflinching, unhesitating determination to immediately, and without doubt, make it so - to risk weakening or breaking that focus. A Jedi must always be a willing sacrifice. A Jedi does not try./ A Jedi does not want to please. A Jedi is and a Jedi /does. 'Do or do not. There is no try.'"

The longer that low, rapid, monotonous litany continues, the more she finds herself pulling away from him and the more horrified her expression becomes until finally, at the end of the recitation, she finds herself sitting back, bolt upright, balanced across Obi-Wan's knees, her right hand raised to her mouth in a vain effort to hide her horror and her left hand pressed hard against her chest, above where she can feel her heart lurching with such violence that the pain of it makes her sight swim and her breath catch in her throat. Forced to blink rapidly to clear her sight, she finds Obi-Wan staring past her, his arms folded tight against his waist, in an attitude almost of pain, white-faced and thin-lipped from a jaw clenched so tight that she finds herself wincing, in sympathy, for the pressure being put on his teeth (being prone to clenching her jaw herself, she is certain that they will doubtlessly ache, dully, later). His eyes, focused on a spot past them both - once again sightlessly glued to the floor - are flat, dark, and steel-gray, and they frighten her with their cold emptiness. For a moment more she hangs there, unsure of what to do, knowing she must do something but terrified that the course she might pick will be the wrong one and so only end up causing him even more pain than she already has, before finally, unable to think of anything else to say, she whispers, "But that's horrible/, Obi-Wan! And /illogical/, as well! By your own wisdom, /am'chara, such a path would end in the Jedi all becoming selfish beings, each one devoted solely to his or her or its own quest for some impossible ideal of absolutely perfect selflessness, performing no action unless it would add in some way to his or her or its personal elevation of being!"

"I - I beg your pardon?" Obi-Wan's head snaps violently back up and he gapes at her, a look of such sheer incomprehension and confusion on his face that she almost misses the flare of fear at the back of his eyes.

Almost.

"If the trick, as you say, is for each being to find a personal balance between selfishness and selflessness, and if the trick is to find some sort of balance between order and chaos that - if I am reading you aright - will not lead to either an orderly stagnation into death or a chaotic plunging into total destruction, then how can the Jedi possibly justify a 'do or do not' philosophy that emphasizes personal sacrifice and selflessness? Isn't that contradictory to the wisdom you've just offered me? Isn't it irrational to expect the Jedi to be able to avoid tumbling into the same traps that all the other sentient beings of the galaxy are apparently prey to? Isn't it hypocritical to assume that, when a Jedi gives over his or her or its life to obeying the rules of the Order's Code, that being isn't simply relinquishing the struggle between selfishness and selflessness and allowing someone else - in this case, whoever came up with your Code, whatever its particulars might be, in the first place - to determine the meaning and purpose of that being's life?" she demands, her voice rising as she speaks, increasingly certain that she's found a deadly flaw in his argument and utterly aghast at the idea that the Jedi have somehow failed to see it.

Obi-Wan looks as if he has been sucker-punched, the earlier incomprehension in his eyes fading into hurt shock, the confusion deepening into a bewilderment that almost seems to border on panic - the kind of panic that she has only seen a very few times before, and always in the faces of those who have suddenly discovered that the specific religious or spiritual beliefs that they have ordered their lives and entire beings around have, in some way, just been negated by the unalterable physical laws of the universe. "It is . . . different for those who know the Force," he merely says, after several long heartbeats of silence in which his eyes dumbly beg her to recall her question and she stubbornly holds her ground, her concern growing by leaps and bounds the longer he remains silent.

"How? How is it different?" she only demands, not bothering to reign in either the note of incredulity or the growing concern in her voice.

In the end, after several more long moments of mute pleading, he simply closes his eyes tightly, as though the sight of her is causing him actual pain, turns his head slightly to the side, and repeats, his voice so small as to almost be unintelligible, "It . . . is different."

"But - !"

Obi-Wan's eyes snap open at that, as though galvanized in some way by her burgeoning fury, and he begins to speak, with increasing strength and rapidity and surety, as though her obvious outrage has somehow served to reorient him in the argument - or perhaps to remind him of what stance he should be taking, in the face of such anger. "Padmé, the galaxy may have no purpose, but the Force supports life because its aim, so far as the Masters have been able to determine through millennia of study, is growth. The Force supports those things that promote life because life inherently tends towards growth. And so the Jedi are guardians of peace, of freedom and prosperity and the rights of all sentient beings to the peaceful pursuit of freedom and prosperity, because those things align themselves with the will of the Force. We are known as warriors of the light, but what we are, at a more fundamental level, is, more properly, guardians and cultivators of life. Do you see the difference, yet?" he asks her, voice and manner extremely earnest as he reaches out and carefully takes her small hands into his much larger ones, cradling them in what is clearly meant to be both a reassuring manner and a visible sign of his willingness to reach out to her, as though this preparedness to physically reach out to her should prove that he is taking her and her questions seriously enough to make an effort to meet her halfway in the discussion - even though he clearly isn't prepared to yield to her so much as a single centimeter of ground, unchallenged. Only a small measure of the earlier mute plea in his eyes, creeping out into his voice as an oddly half hopeful and half plaintive timbre, belies his sudden show of earnest conviction, and it is this hint of questioning, of openness, of some part of Obi-Wan that is not yet so thoroughly indoctrinated by the Order and its Code that it is not yet quiet entirely unwilling to think for itself, as much as her own dismay at what she has heard of this Code, that prompts decides her path.

Staring him directly in the eyes so that he will have no reason to doubt her sincerity, she flatly declares, "I see no difference. So you seek to shelter us in our nobler pursuits! How does that make you any different than we who seek after such growth?"

After several long moments of silence in which he seems almost to struggle with some part of himself, as if the same small part of him that has been pleading with her and ruining his façade of earnest conviction wishes to answer her openly, in his own words, but the rest of him (and a much larger part of him) feels in some way honor-bound - or perhaps merely constrained by his training - to give her a much more route reply, Obi-Wan finally tells her, "It . . . is not so much that we are/ different as it is that the Force /makes us different."

Eyes narrowing suspiciously, she tells him, without hesitation, "That sounds like the justification of one who has been taught to believe in the rules that govern an illusion, rather than to see what simply is, am'chara. More, it sounds like a dangerous double standard. Are you certain that your Jedi Masters have not deceived themselves into buying into an illusion, with this Code, because that illusion is in some way more comforting or more to the liking of their egos?"

"Padmé!" Obi-Wan starts to his feet at that, unceremoniously dumping her out of his lap, and only the fact that she has been waiting for him to do just this keeps her from falling in a heap and lets her catch onto his left arm, so that he cannot simply flee from her (and her words). He backs up as far as the full extension of both his arm and hers will allow and, after one more step, jerks to a halt when a low cry of startled pain from her makes his eyes refocus and take in the sight of her, dragging awkwardly along behind him.

"Should I let you run from me now, am'chara, when you would not allow me to run from you?" she demands when his eyes finally finish the journey from the sight of her right hand clamped determinedly around his left wrist up to her face, grimly holding both her grip on him and his wide, wild, and still half-panicked and fearful gaze.

"I am not trying to run from you. You . . . startled me," Obi-Wan stiffly replies, voice and manner suddenly both cold and distant. "If you think so poorly of the Jedi, then perhaps I - "

Unimpressed by the abrupt cooling of his demeanor - recognizing it for the last-ditch effort at escape that it is - she interrupts before he can use her words as an excuse to take offense and retreat from both her presence and their discussion, gently but firmly telling him, "I do not think poorly of the Jedi. I think very highly of the Jedi. But I think even more highly of you, Obi-Wan, and I think you are smart enough to know when you are being lied to."

"The Code is the Code, Padmé," he merely replies plaintively. Then, as though surprised by the sound of his own voice, he straightens to his full height and firmly adds, "It cannot lie."

"Oh, no?" she merely shoots back, taking the lead from him and raising a questioning eyebrow. "And I suppose it came direct from the Force?" she continues, in as sardonic and patently disbelieving a tone as possible.



Due to length, this scene continues immediately in the next chapter!