FicWad

Additional Author's Note: Please note that the last scene ran too long and had to be cut in half when I posted this chapter on the lj, and I'm keeping the division approximate due to the scene's excessive length!







"So are we going to go with a fairly comprehensive memory wipe, or would you rather block off the information behind compulsory shields?" Anakin asks a good fifteen minutes later, when they are finally alone and making their way up the steps towards the dome of the house and the room Sola is being kept in.

"She swore specific oaths when Padmé chose to share certain information with her. Those vows will likely have inclined her towards certain beliefs that we should be able to take advantage of. By invoking the consequences of the promises she’s broken, we should be able to remove only the potentially damaging information from her mind, without also destroying other memories or stores of knowledge. That way, when she is banished from Naboo, she will still be able to function as an educated human adult would and won’t become a drain on another world or system’s resources. And I want to remove everything she learned from Sidious from her mind. I don’t want to take any chances with shields that someone else might later be able to find a way around. However," Obi-Wan continues, his voice matter-of-fact and his face set in serene but immovable lines of determined conviction, "I also think it will be safer for all involved if we establish certain compulsory behaviors instead of simply turning her loose on the rest of the galaxy. Otherwise, she’ll simply look for other ways of hurting us until something happens to make her realize that she’s Force-sensitive and turns her attention back towards practices that will only end up inflicting more damage the Force as well as to the beings around her. If the Jedi Council of old could protect the galaxy by reshaping the personality and identity of a Sith Lord no less powerful and no less willful than Darth Revan himself into a being wholly loyal to both the Order and the Republic, I see no reason why we should not be able to convince Sola that she is at least benignly inclined towards the Jedi Bendu and whatever galactic government replaces the old Republic, once we’ve removed all of the more dangerous knowledge from her mind. It is a distastefully high-handed thing to do, but unfortunately, unless we discover that Sola has been somehow forced by Sidious to obey him against her will, there’s simply not a better option open to us. There’s simply too much at stake to hope we might be able to coax her into rehabilitating herself willingly and we can’t simply lock her away somewhere, either."

"Pity we can’t simply try her for aiding and abetting Sidious with all of the deaths he helped facilitate. There are some planets in the Republic – or, well, what use to be the Republic, anyway – that consider helping a murderer to be the same thing as killing somebody outright and where murderers and traitors are still put to death, you know," Anakin notes, half grumbling and half sighing.

"Anakin – "

"I know, I know," Anakin cuts him off quickly before he can say anything else, raising his hands defensively and dutifully reciting, "justice is not vengeance and revenge is never just. It’s just frustrating, is all. She’s essentially admitted to helping Darth Sidious use her sister as bait in a trap for me, and she’s been using her father – and probably just recently started also using her husband – as the equivalent of energy-buffet. The woman is, by all accounts, as evil as any of the Dark Acolytes Sidious encouraged Dooku to collect and train during the war. We know, from Master Dooku, that Sidious was technically no longer observing the Rule of Two. He had Dark Side Adepts of his own – most of whom are still on Byss, waiting for us to come root them out – and Dooku was really only responsible for finding a fraction of them for him. It’s entirely possible that Sola is one of those Adepts and Dooku just never knew about it, since Sidious would have recruited her as a way to gain more power over me, through Padmé, and the Sith Lord wouldn’t have wanted Dooku to suspect just how much time and energy he was putting into cultivating me as a possible ally and eventual apprentice. And if that’s so, then she could be a lot more powerful and even more dangerous than we’re already assuming she is."

"Does she feel powerful in the Force to you, Anakin? Has anything she’s done indicated to you that Sola might be more powerful than she seems? The Naberries and the others all mean well, but they know very little about what is necessary to safely keep a Force-sensitive with even a modicum of training in one place," Obi-Wan replies, shaking his head slightly in a gesture that is closer to outright disbelief than it is to mere bemusement at the naiveté of the well-intentioned Nabooians. "Initiates are taught in the crèche before the age of nine for humans and humanoids or by whatever happens to be the corresponding level of maturity for their specific species how to use the Force to help accelerate their metabolisms so as to be able to more quickly burn off any drugs, whether medicinal or poisonous, that they might be given or come into contact with in the field, whether accidentally or on purpose. If Sola’s had even as much generalized training as a child of nine in the crèche, she should have been able to burn off whatever sedatives they’ve been giving her time she wished to, and yet there’s no sign that she ever even knew, much less tried, to do so. Likewise, even a first-year Padawan should have enough control to be able to use the Force to trip the mechanisms on a pair of electrobinders. And yet, she’s remained securely locked in her straitjacket and her ankle-restraints – a jacket that she also could have removed by using the Force to tear the fabric of it all down the front, if she had even that much raw power and enough training to use the Force to catch hold of a single piece of material. The restraining field and the locking mechanisms on the door would be more difficult to get around, granted, but if nothing else she should have been able to call her lightsaber to her, even if she had to ignite it and cause it to cut a hole through the floor so that it could actually reach her. Instead, during a period of time when she was not yet restrained as she now is, Sola apparently attempted to use a blanket to attack and restrain her mother, and began choking her with it out of frustration when she refused to use the remote to open the door for Sola. These are not actions that, to me, suggest a powerful and well-trained Dark Adept. Rather, these seem more the actions of someone who is furious over being caught and, in addition to not thinking very clearly, is in a frenzy because she has, essentially, been backed into a corner and not only has nowhere else to go but also has no knowledge of how she might try to get there even if she knew of another possible destination."

"Well, that’s true enough, I suppose, but I still don’t think that means it’s entirely safe to assume that she can’t possibly be more powerful or more dangerous than she seems to be, right now," Anakin insists, shrugging a little bit (as if to add /what else can I say?/) as he continues up the broad stairwell at Obi-Wan’s side.

"Anakin, you know what they say about probable explanations for certain behaviors – "

"Yes, yes, whatever’s simplest is the most likely reason. I know," Anakin shrugs again, waving a dismissive hand, as he cuts Obi-Wan’s words off. "I just don’t trust that to hold true with the Sith or anyone who’s been working with and trained by a Sith – even if she apparently hasn’t been taught anything useful when it comes to basic survival skills. It’s just too easy to imagine that, if she’s anything like Sidious, she might have chosen to stay put like she has for the sole purpose of convincing us she’s not really all that dangerous and putting us off our guard, so she can spring some kind of crazy, complex, Sith-spawned trap on us when we go into that room expecting to find her confined to that mattress."

"Hmm. Normally, I’d be tempted to tell you that you’re being a touch over-paranoid," Obi-Wan notes in response, only the thoughtful tone of his voice keeping Anakin from cutting in again and protesting immediately, "but given how many insidious plots and conspiracies have been overlooked, lately, I find it entirely too easy to agree with you. All she would really need would be another way of disguising or manipulating her sense of self within the Force, one that we don’t know about and so cannot sense or counter, to set up a trap for us."

"Ah. So, in other words, everything else that you just said – all those reasons you listed for why she can’t possibly be that powerful or that dangerous – was just you spinning another loop pastry and playing Hutt’s advocate again," Anakin drawls sarcastically, half smirking at he says it and making a show out of resisting rolling his eyes only through a great effort of will.

"Anakin, please! I certainly wasn’t playing at anything," Obi-Wan swiftly retorts, only the sparkle in his eyes giving away the pleasure he is taking in the pseudo-argument as he pulls himself upright, hands planted firmly upon his hips, and adds, with the utmost dignity, "and I most definitely was not doing or saying anything having to do with a Hutt!" He holds that challenging pose for another few heartbeats, his chin raised proudly, before he finally ruins the act, grinning as he explains, "Technically, I was taking the part of Sith’s advocate."

Anakin can’t quite keep himself from snorting an amused little laugh at that, though he certainly tries. In the end, though, shaking his head and still chuckling, he breaks down and says, "Alright then, so it’s a trap. So what, exactly, are we doing again?"

"The same thing we always seem to end up doing, O beloved former Padawan-mine: we spring it," Obi-Wan replies with a smile than could only be called triumphantly exultant.

"That does have a familiar ring to it. I’d hate to think we were getting repetitive, though, Master," Anakin glibly sighs, shaking his head in a show of concern and reservation.

"Oh, I think we can probably pull out a few new tricks, if need be, don’t you?" Obi-Wan merely asks in return, raising a not quite mockingly questioning eyebrow and playing along by letting his smile metamorphose from fiercely elated to smugly serene. "The Force has given us new abilities and knowledge to call upon that we didn’t have, the last time we moved to spring a Sith-set trap."

"We do have more to work with. That’s true enough," Anakin agrees with a nod, tapping a finger thoughtfully against his chin before abruptly shrugging and returning Obi-Wan’s smile with extremely wide, white, shark-like grin. "Alright, then. I’m game, if you are. Like they say, there’s always more than one way to frag a mynock. Come on! Let’s see what she’s got, then. The sooner we spring the trap, the quicker we can turn the tables on her!" he adds, his laughter an expression of pure delight as Obi-Wan immediately increases their pace upwards, pushing Anakin to hurry to keep step with him.

It is likely because of their mutual delight over their determination to spring whatever trap Sola may have prepared for them that they both fail to notice a slight oddity – the faintest glow of sullenly red-tinged visible light, gathering like a growing charge of static electricity in and on the intertwined strands of hair that make up most of the plaited necklace that is Anakin’s beatified Padawan braid, looped around Obi-Wan’s neck and resting comfortably out of sight beneath the collar of his innermost layer of tunic, which, even though it is not nearly so high as to actually come up around his neck (like the darker brown innermost layer of clothing he had worn, as a Master, before the many revelations that had followed so swiftly upon the heels of his learning of Padmé Amidala’s death), still easily covers the entire length of the braided necklace, muffling the odd light sufficiently to keep it from being noticed, even though the radiance and the color of the glow is just barely bright enough that it would have been visible to a pair of eyes more concerned with paying attention to all of the little details of their surroundings instead of turning upwards in eager anticipation towards the confrontation looming ahead.

Regardless of the reason, though, the fact remains that blood-colored luminescence goes unnoticed beneath Obi-Wan’s clothes. When they have gone as far up the stairwell as they can without having to open the portal there in order to proceed further, Obi-Wan looks at Anakin and only Anakin when he asks, "Interlocking shields?"

And Anakin, his gaze locked on Obi-Wan’s eyes, merely grins and nods slightly in reply, saying, "Mental and physical, I’d say, in case she tries to throw something at us."

And Obi-Wan, smiling back, simply reaches unhesitatingly out along the bond and joins himself to Anakin as closely as it is possible for them to join, without dissolving bodily into the bright glow of the Force, adding his power to Anakin’s in a way that makes even the sharing they engendered on that badly battered fragment of /Invisible Hand/, on that desperate controlled crash landing on Coruscant, look like the clumsy, amateurish first attempt of initiates new to the ways of the Force. The shield that springs into existence both within and around them, the moment the blending is complete, is both as simple and as impenetrable as a thought, Obi-Wan calling upon the strength of their bond and the power of the Force to shield them and their joining from any harmful attempt to reach or influence their minds or emotions while Anakin calls upon the Force to surround them in an unpassable bubble of impenetrable protection, one through which nothing but air and sound can pass. The brightness of the Force-energy that immediately surrounds them and permeates their bond is so brilliant that it instantly completely blankets the far smaller, dimmer, sanguine glow kindled within the core of Anakin’s Padawan braid. Afterwards, not even someone specifically looking for that weaker glow would have been able to pick it out against the backdrop of the much more luminescent shine of their Force-shields. Thus, blind to the second source of light that one of them is carrying with them, Obi-Wan and Anakin key the codes to unseal the portal through the ceiling that is the floor of the dome, and pass silently and swiftly up the steps to the room above, their motions so quick that the door barely has time to open before it is being told to shut itself again.

The interior of the dome seems exactly like what they’ve been told to expect – so closely matching the description they’ve been given, in fact, that Anakin is immediately suspicious and a familiar sinking sensation in the pit of Obi-Wan’s stomach warns him of something that is not as it seems, something that they are missing, something that is important enough that it will cause a great deal of trouble if not found and dealt with straight away. And yet, there’s nothing tangible upon which to hang the blame for the sudden extremely bad feeling about the whole situation that essentially freezes the two Jedi Bendu in their tracks, just barely beyond the reach of the portal’s circumference. The only thing truly strange about the room is its utter lack of real strangeness. Sola, once Naberrie, is sitting in an awkward looking huddle near the center of a mattress that is pushed firmly up against the northernmost wall of the otherwise echoingly empty rounded room with its high-vaulted ceiling, staring fixedly down at the pale blue material of the mattress supporting her weight, and the sight is so familiar that Anakin could have, even without seeing the back of the straitjacket, precisely how may binders it has holding it closed, even while Obi-Wan could have said, without even truly looking, much less bothering to count, precisely how many sun-dappled freckles there are upon Sola’s face and neck. It is the familiarity of the room itself and of the blood-traitor’s position upon the mattress that is so eerily disquieting – so much so that at first neither man thinks to look beyond the sight that has been so immediately presented to them.

Sola Naberrie had been a beautiful woman when Anakin Skywalker first met her face-to-face – a slim, fine-featured, blue-eyed, darkly brunette woman teetering upon the edge between medium and greater than average height whose long, slender lines made her seem even taller than she truly was. Slightly fuller-figured than Padmé, though with a waistline at least as small as her younger sister’s even after two live, (mostly) full-term births, Sola had possessed a natural grace and a liveliness and obvious intelligence that only enhanced her beauty, her brightly animated features – the cheekbones too sharply defined and the chin a little too obviously pointed to lend itself to a classical oval, though the overall shape of her face was closer to an oval than her sibling’s more heart-shaped features – somehow seeming very like to those of Padmé when in the midst of a passionate oratory even though Sola frankly looked more like the elder sibling of Dormé, one of Padmé’s handmaidens and bodyguards, than she resembled Padmé herself. Sola’s features were all sharper and more classically defined than those of her little sister, and, given that plus the differences in their heights as well as the shocking brilliance of Sola’s blue eyes and the startling contrast between the sleek straightness of Sola’s dark hair and the unrestrained natural curliness of Padmé’s slightly lighter brown hair, it had been difficult for Anakin to see Sola as anything other than an older and not quite right alternative version of his beloved Padmé.

Had he met her under other circumstances, it is entirely possible that Anakin would have seen Sola in a different light and recognized her for the classically beautiful woman that she truly is, one whose fair skin, high cheekbones, tiny-waisted fuller figure, and gorgeously contrasting dark hair and bright blue eyes have, for years, brought her more wide-spread acclaim as a beauty than her younger sister ever knew, in life, at least upon the world they both called home. Because he met Padmé first, though, Anakin has never fully appreciated the extent of Sola’s beauty. In this, he has been much like Obi-Wan, whose only contact with the woman has been via holocomm and under less than ideal circumstances, given that he first met Sola during his attempt to comfort Padmé over the loss of Sola’s first child and only had any contact with her again in the aftermath of the botched assassination attempt upon Padmé that had also ended up claiming the life of Sola’s second child. The expectations of both men are, therefore, fairly low, when it comes to Sola’s appearance. Otherwise, the sight of Sola upon that mattress likely would have seemed shocking for reasons besides the illogical sense of familiarity surrounding that sight. For Sola, who normally appears just as young and fresh as a maid only just old enough to consider marriage, looks every day and more of her not quite thirty-two standard years of age. Clad in a loose but modest nightgown that, once upon a time, began life as a very pale, crisp, cool blue garment but that now more closely resembles a ragsack reject the color of dirty, rotten bruises with her loose dark hair (unwashed and obviously several shades darker than Padmé’s ever was, perhaps even a little bit darker than Jobal’s hair) surrounding her in a matted cloud of snarled tangles and nests of rats and sweaty smears of grime smudged across her freckled face, Sola is about as unlovely a sight as a woman so beautiful could ever present. And the first words out of her mouth make her appear even more unlovely.

"So. You’ve finally come to me. The pretty and over-young and none too bright leunnaun taken on to scratch a certain itch and the beautiful and untouchable self-made eunuch and object of obsession who supplied the itch for scratching in the first place," Sola sneers, her voice little more than a hoarse, hateful croak, her blue eyes peering out at them balefully through the dark veil of her snarled and filthy hair. "I wondered how long it would take, if you would ever even dare to show your faces here, you murderous cowards. I’m amazed they let you into the house, with Padmé’s body here. There is an old wives’ tale still spoken of in many circles on Naboo, about how the body of one murdered will bleed at the approach of the murderers. I suppose you’ve managed to sweet-talk them so that they think the bloodstains worth the risk. Jedi filth! You and your mind tricks! Sometimes I wonder if you didn’t use too much of your power to sap the will of others, and if that isn’t why Padmé was so enthralled and besotted with you both. She had a strong will and a mind of her own, before she ever met you, and yet look at what has become of her, since! She was never the same again, after meeting you. She was obsessed with you, Kenobi, and you encouraged her in her obsession with your so-called friendship. All those late-night holocomm sessions and long letters! You ruined her as surely as a spice pusher ruins his clients by creating and then catering to their addictions, always dangling the specter of hope before her and making her want more of you than she could ever have! I never would have believed a Jedi could be so cruel. You know she fixated on your apprentice because she felt as if it were a way to be closer to you, don’t you? And you!" she laughs, her attention shifting away from Obi-Wan to Anakin. "Do you know, I actually think she might have actually preferred it if you’d been his catamite, young one, and not merely even more desperately in love with him than she was?" she asks with another cruel bark of laughter, her blue gaze boring in mercilessly on Anakin, the whiteness of the teeth that she flashes at him seeming somehow obscene in the glow of the two ignited and defensively held blue lightsabers. Every word that she speaks is a poisoned dagger, and, for all the strength of the Force around them and the physical protection offered by their drawn lightsabers, neither Obi-Wan nor Anakin can keep those weapons from striking home. If she had sought to hurl Force-infused commands at them or to throw herself at them bodily, the strength of their shields would have bounced her and any and all attempts to coerce them back across the room. But Sola is both too cowardly and too clever to seek to attack them head-on in the Force, as her Master had done, and the tremendous strength of their shields unfortunately count for very little when they have no obvious attack to turn away. Sola’s only weapons are her words and because they are, at first, only words, the Force-infused shields don’t turn them away, and so the meaning of those words strike home in the hearts of the two men unimpeded by their seemingly seamless and impenetrable defenses. The acknowledgment of their love lies much too close to the present for the armor of certainty to as yet have no gaps or weaknesses within it, and the pain and guilt for the way that love had been unacknowledged for so long a time and the way that denial had impacted upon and helped cause damage to the lives of others are all still far too near the surface for trust in the Force alone to banish such feelings. Sola’s vituperative words, infused at first with only simple hatred and contempt, have the desired effect. They sow chaos and confusion, distraction and doubt, eroding both the will and concentration as well as the determination and conviction of the two Jedi Bendu and nailing them into place before her where she can continue to pour her vitriol into them, the shields they have raised around them flickering more and more weakly in the Force with each malicious word as she gradually comes to infuse those words with the will-sapping twisted Force-talent that the Sith name Dun Möch, deliberately calling up pain and doubt, regret and guilt, confusion and shame and a growing sense of inadequacy, hurting them in the only way that she can, by preying upon their agony and sorrow for the mistakes they have made and making them suffer through hells of torment for those failures. And, like a Sith, Sola grows stronger with their suffering, the Force twisting around her like a wounded animal, power flowing into her like blood spilt from thousands of slashing cuts. Her smile transforming into a snarled death-rictus of a grin with her satisfaction as she takes in that tainted power, glutting herself on it and using it to fuel her attempts to hurt the two men even more and so bring herself even more satisfaction and more strength, Sola continues with a laugh as harshly croaking as the cry of a carrion bird, claiming, "That way, she would have at least been able to hope for a taste of Obi-Wan from what lingered still on your lips. It certainly would’ve been the only way she could ever touch any part of him, short of trading in her hips and breasts for a pair of – "

"You foul-mouthed, filthy-minded, guttersnipe of a creature! How /dare /you speak to them in such a manner? The /clannachd is right to name you streppoch and declare you khiel-streppain legally: I own no part of you is kin to me."/

The voice, though it is so full anger and loathing and contempt that it is harder and more unforgiving than any of the three living beings within the room have ever heard it, is as familiar as it is impossible. As Sola flinches and recoils before that voice, seeming to shrink in stature as if she were falling in upon herself like a log hollow with rot might collapse into in a shower of dust and splinters with little more than the application of pressure, Obi-Wan and Anakin turn to each other, shocked, staggering slightly from the release of the evil spell that Sola has been so skillfully weaving around them. There is a thin line of blood-red etched in fiery light beneath the necks of the layers of tunics and over-robe Obi-Wan is wearing, a scarlet necklace of pulsing light that turns crimson even as they watch and explodes into a fiery curtain of blindingly bright but heatless brilliance. And when they can see again, the figure of Padmé Amidala is standing before them, limed in light that is more red-tinged than blue-white but otherwise much the same as the eerily pale eldritch glow that surrounds the forms of the Force spirits of Qui-Gon Jinn and Dooku of Serenno. This Padmé has the full height and mature form of the young Senator who fought so fiercely upon Geonosis, but she is wearing the battle uniform that she wore as Queen Amidala when reclaiming Naboo from the Trade Federation. The sanguinary light catches in the folds of the burgundy cloth and turns it maroon, as if the fabric were streaked with drying blood, and the scarlet lining shines as if it were slick and heavy with newly shed blood. The effect is so unsettling that the two Jedi find themselves gasping and recoiling, too, their lightsabers rising instinctively before them as if to ward off an imminent attack. But the figure of Padmé ignores them, striding forward across the room until she is standing but a step from the edge of the mattress Sola is slumped upon, close enough that she seems to loom menacingly over her sister. And then she begins to speak, and if each word that Sola had spoken had been like an infusion of acid and bile to Obi-Wan and Anakin, then each word that Padmé speaks is like a breath of bitterly cold but undeniably clean air, helping to clear their heads and their hearts alike of Sola’s evil taint.

***

When her body had failed her and her spirit had tumbled free of her dying body, the Force spirit of the former Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn had reached out with the Force and caught her, mind and soul, everything that had been within her that had made her the person she was, like a man capturing a falling snowflake in his carefully cupped hands. Thus, she had been kept from rejoining the Force at her death, for Qui-Gon had taken her, where he had caught her, and placed her within the strands of Anakin Skywalker’s beatified Padawan braid, securing her within it as one might place a gem in the setting of some piece of jewelry. She had been caged, of sorts, but not against her will, for Qui-Gon had explained to her how she might yet be able to try to reverse some of the wrongs she had done, while living, even though her body had passed into death. Master Jinn had been very careful to show her the limits of her willing prison and the way in which she might choose to pass out of it again, in order to help Anakin and Obi-Wan. In doing so, he had shown her something of the ways of the Force and, even though she had been all but blind to the flows of the Force while living, when bereft of her body and reduced to pure mind and soul, nothing more than a spirit in the shape of an unfolding blossom of power within the Force itself, she who had, when living, been Padmé Amidala had quickly learned how to manipulate and control the lines of power that bound her to that braid and anchored her within the realm of the physical as an individual with memories and a consciousness separate from the vast flows of elemental energy that make up the Force.

Strictly speaking, it had been necessary for the Force spirit to teach her such things for her to even be able to do what Qui-Gon wanted her to and what she also so desperately wished to be able to do – namely, to remain separate from the Force long enough to exonerate Anakin and Obi-Wan of her death, reassure them that they were meant to be together, and apologize to them for her part in not only keeping them apart but actually driving them further away from each other by so foolishly and selfishly agreeing to marry Anakin when she had known that they did not truly love one another. However, because Qui-Gon taught her these things and then left her alone within the confines of the necklace made out of that braid, leaving the fulfillment of that three-part task solely at her discretion, it had also allowed her to choose to return to and then remain safely within the limits of that plaited chain, where she would be able to watch over Obi-Wan and Anakin and make sure that the breach between them truly and completely healed. And so it is here she has stayed, neither a Force spirit nor a Force ghost but rather simply the same mind and soul that had once animated the body of Padmé Amidala, her coherency carefully preserved within the Force by a specifically woven net of power drawn from the Force. Though she is fairly certain that Qui-Gon never meant for her to remain here for so long, she has, since her death, made her home almost exclusively within the confines of the slender braid. And she is fiercely glad that she’s chosen to do so, for it means, now, that she can choose to come out of it again, make herself visible, and speak to those who need to hear words from her.

The creature (she will not think of her as human, for to be human is to have both a soul and a conscience as well as intellect, and, so far as she can tell, this animal cowering fearfully before her lacks in two of those three critical things) Sola, once Sola Naberrie, deserves much more than mere words from her. But when words are used in a certain manner in combination with the power of the Force, the results can be even more spectacular and lasting than physical actions alone might be. And so, drawing upon in the Force in such a way as to carefully pierce Sola through at the very heart of her corruption, leaching away the tainted power she has drained from others through her twisted of the Force in the same manner that one might drain pus from a boil, she speaks. She speaks while she is draining the putrescent energy from Sola, and she infuses her words with the Force so that the truth of them bind Sola, wrapping her about in chains forged of unforgiving honesty and holding her in place, weighing her down and keeping her from being able to reach out the Force herself for the distraction of their coldness and immovability all around her. The words that she speaks to Sola are, therefore, in a way less important than the Force that she infuses them with and calls upon to help direct them. And yet, without the words, the manacles would not exist, much less work, and so it is the words themselves that are the most important thing of all.

"On a world of the star known as Luka Ællunoir, there lives a bird called the lemaïas; graceful, small, lovely, swift-flying, with a relatively pleasing voice, and with glossy feathers in all the brilliant colors of a rising or setting sun. Only one flaw does this bird possess, and that is that is survives solely on the blood of other creatures. A long time ago, the lemaïas lived by grooming the wingfeathers of a much larger bird, the tannarchan – a bird renown for its heartbreakingly beautiful and haunting song – and by eating the seeds and parasites that it found there: a benign relationship from which both birds benefitted. But then one day, perhaps accidentally, one lemaïas learned that, if it pecked with its sharp hooked beak as it groomed, it could draw upon the tannarchan’s blood. And blood was both food and drink to the lemaïas, better by far than grubs or seeds alone. So this one lemaïas began to groom and peck together, being cannily careful to draw just enough blood to live and never enough to harm its source of sustenance. And all of the other lemaïas, seeing this easy new way of feeding, very quickly learned to follow suit." Padmé’s gaze upon Sola is clear and cold and steady, and, though the woman trembles at what she hears in the voice of she who was her younger sister and can certainly feel the weight of that unflinching glance, still she remains huddled in upon herself, her body curling inward like that of a child trying to hide from a nightmare, and will not look up at Padmé’s form. Still, Padmé holds her silence for a time and simply looks at her, eyes narrowed in consideration, waiting to see how else Sola will choose to respond to her and the obviously allegorical story she is reciting. When Sola does nothing but flinch in even further upon herself, Padmé nods, once, in sudden decision. After another beat of silence that feels strange for that it does not /feel strange, Padmé continues to speak in the same piercing, carrying, oratorically narrative tone. "Only it came to pass that occasionally, every now and again, one of the lemaïas would peck too deep and drink too much of a tannarchan’s blood – perhaps out of haste or fear or greed, or possibly out of a wish not to be so forced to feed itself – and occasionally it also eventually happened that the wound a lemaïas had pecked would not staunch and close, so that the blood would continue to drain away even after the lemaïas had fed itself to fullness. Irregardless of which reason might be the cause, though, it came to pass that the host perished; and if a tannarchan dies then its lemaïas will die with it, since the lemaïas cannot fend for itself. One would think that even the stupidest of lemaïas ever hatched would know and would understand the meaning of this, though low cunning instinct if naught else; but the result is the same whether ’tis so or not, and so now there are far fewer tannarchan upon that world, and far less song as well – for a dead tannarchan’s mate will die as well, since those creatures pair for life. And lemaïas still compete to feed off the tannarchan remaining, for they still have not learned to feed themselves. This habit so far is limited to this one bird, the lemaïas, but who knows what other animal might not one day choose to follow suit? Or may have already done so . . . "/

And this time Sola begins to speak rapidly into the quiet the moment that Padmé falls silent, just as Padmé has expected her to. "I did not mean to cause you or yours any real harm. When he first approached me, I thought that it would be all for the best – "

Her opinion of the wretch confirmed by those patently false words, Padmé quickly cuts her off before she can seek to spin out any more obvious lies. "I will not abide any more of your lies! Do /not lie to me. Just do not. Not in this moment. Or by all that is holy, I will drag you forth from this house and this planet by your ears and then drop you down upon a world that is uninhabited so that I might safely bring the whole of that world down upon you and your then bleeding, dead, unhearing ears. I shall find a way to do so, if you lie to me now, Sola, I swear it!"/

"You are not Force-sensitive! You have no such power!" Sola immediately snarls back, clearly affronted by the notion that Padmé might be able to wield such power.

"True enough. But there is a kind of power inherent in the act of surviving past the death of one’s own body, blood-traitor, and I would not hesitate to use it all to see that you receive justice for what you have done," Padmé promises, her voice a hard, low, unforgiving growl.

"What justice? You have /always /hated me!" Sola cries out, a grating nasal whine entering into her voice that would put Padmé’s teeth instantly on edge and make her blood boil with fury, were she still alive. As it is, the self-pitying tone only makes the blood-shine of the angry red light upon Padmé grow at once both brighter and deeper and more fully saturated, as though she has been garbed in a mantle of blood itself.

"That is not so, and you would know it if you had not succeeded in lying to yourself so well that you cannot even tell what is truth and what is untruth any longer! True enough, I no longer love you now, but you were my sister, Sola!" /Padmé cries out, letting her voice flood full of the betrayal and anguish that has been tearing at the heart and soul of her ever since she first learned of Sola’s treachery. "I gave love and trust to you such as I never gave to another! And you used that against me – and not only against me, but against those I care for, as well! For the first, I might have been able to forgive you, but the latter? No/, Sola," she continues, voice and face hardening once more to implacability. "As much or more as I loved you before, I despise you now, for what you have done and what you have become in the doing of it. There can be a kind of purity in hatred – a simple perfection that other, more blended emotions know nothing of. And as well you know, our people are not, by and large, great believers in forgiveness. It is one of the many benefits that came of paying no heed such sentiments as the need to turn the other cheek. We do not turn away from scorn or stand idly by while others pile heaps of undeserved abuse and vileness upon us: rather, we rip off both of the cheeks of the ones who would think to harm us so when unprovoked. And if we do forgive, it is a kind of forgiveness that needs another name, for there is no absolution in it; rather, it marks down the transgression and reparation alike, upon a balance-sheet unlike all others, and then allows both parties to go on. But the sin is surety for all future actions, and neither side ever forgets. Honor-price and even blood-payment is well and good, but sometimes, do you know, such recompense is simply not enough." Padmé pauses for a moment then, looking into the vacantly empty, once classically beautiful and still somewhat pretty but now mostly just haggard and worn face that has at last turned up towards her. "Do you have even the very least tiniest bit of an idea as to what I’ve just now said? Have you any greater notion than the walls have, or the floor, or the mattress?"

Sola’s sunspeckles stand out like begriming smudges, at that, mottling her paleness like the awful beginnings of some dreadful skin plague, their darkness an ugly contrast to her otherwise smooth complexion. Face locked in a snarling rictus of fury that stretches her thin skin so horribly that the shape of her bones beneath are all revealed as clearly as if they’ve been limed in black shadows upon a white canvas, Sola snaps her head up and around towards Padmé and all but screams, "I am not stupid! No matter what you or any other may think of me, I’m not stupid, so don’t you /dare /speak to me as if I were! And don’t you /dare /speak down to me either, little sister! I’m from the exact same stock you are and I’m not the least particle less intelligent or less beautiful or less important than you! I’m just as good as you, if not even better, for the Force chose me when it utterly spurned you! The only reason everyone thinks so much more of you than they do of me is because you went into politics and Master Sidious arranged things so that you would be elected Queen of Naboo! You wouldn’t even have /that /to lord over me, if not for him, so don’t you dare put on airs, you little /brat/!"

"Save your lies for one who is interested in their poison, viper!" Padmé hisses at her in response, goaded out of her resolution not to be drawn into an argument by Sola’s hateful remark about her owning Sidious for the success of her political career. As if she owes that hideous creature anything – ! Insulted now as well as angry, she snarls, "I no longer have any part of you, neither blood nor name to hold in common, and I am nothing like you, Sola! Nothing, do you understand? We are as unalike as light and darkness, you and I, and there is nothing you can ever do or say that will change that. Just as you cannot change the fact that I was elected Queen of Naboo fairly and upon my own merit simply by declaring something to the contrary!"

"Oh, but you were elected/, little sister," Sola spits back, with gleeful venom, "because Master Sidious had planned to make the home planet of his public face the center of conflict in the galaxy and to milk the sympathy that would build in the Senate and the across the galaxy for him into enough power to plunge the whole of the galaxy into civil war. He used King Veruna to weaken Naboo and then he had the man killed when he was no longer of any use. And then, though others, he encouraged you to run for office when the news of Veruna abdication became public. He allowed you to be elected because he knew you were not sensitive in the Force and that he could bend you to his will, if necessary, and because your extreme youth and inexperience logically tipped the odds in his favor for a long and drawn-out conflict between the peoples of Naboo and the droid armies of the Trade Federation. You ruined his plans, you conniving little bitch!/ You wouldn’t even have been elected, if not for him, and your response was to ruin his plans for Naboo and the larger war it could have and would have otherwise sparked completely! Ungrateful little slut! You were so busy mooning over that young Jedi that you would not take his advice, and look what you did! You ruined his plans and you killed my son, you little murderer! That is the real truth of the matter, and you cannot change it, deny it however much you will!" Sola is essentially screaming at the last, so out of control in her fury that spittle actually flies from her mouth in a ragged spray at the last few words.

Padmé gasps at that, stunned both at the audacity of Sola’s claim and at the amount of sheer unadulterated hatred for Padmé that her apparent irrationality about the loss of her children reveals. And though a part of her still wants to argue the previous point – since, regardless of any arrangements Sidious may have had with King Veruna and irregardless of whether or not he may have actually killed the man intending to clear a path to the throne for Padmé, the fact remains that Padmé ran for the office of her own accord and was then elected through her own merit. Which of course means that Padmé doesn’t owe Sidious anything and that Sola’s claim that she owes the success of her political career to Sidious is false. The overall shape of her career may owe much to the Sith Lord’s machinations and some of her later decisions may have been influenced by the Sith Master’s strengthening hold over her mind and will, but it was Padmé herself who set that career in motion and Padmé whose courage and charisma and intelligence had been largely responsible for at least most of the success she garnered in her chosen field before her death – but the rest of her understands that this second accusation is far more important. The true depth of Sola’s evil and the extent of both her sanity and her misapprehension hinges upon whether Sola actually believes this claim or just manufactured it, after the fact, or accepted it wholesale from Sidious as a likely-sounding excuse, after deliberately choosing to betray both Padmé and the whole of the Galactic Republic by allying with Sidious for no better reason than jealousy and spite for his younger sister. Steeling herself to reach out through the dark roiling mass of hatred and fury surrounding Sola and touch both the mind and the heart beneath it, so that she can judge the intent behind the next words Sola speaks (whether it is merely to hurt or to stand as an actual accusation) and arrive at a measure of the culpability Sola bears for her betrayal, Padmé snaps, "Do not /dare to try to put that on me! Your son died because of the stress and sickness you suffered during the blockade that the Trade Federation – under your precious Sidious’ orders – established over our planet. His blood is on the hands of the Sith, and you would know it, if you were still capable at all of rational thought!"/

"It didn’t have to happen! It wouldn’t have happened at all/, if you had only surrendered control of the planet to the Viceroy in the first place! His blood is on /your hands/, Padmé! Just as the blood of my first daughter is! And don’t you /dare /try to deny it! You’re just as responsible for their deaths as you would be if you’d taken them up by the ankles and dashed their brains out against the floor! My babies, my firstborn son and my firstborn daughter, both dead, and all because of /you! You speak of justice! Where is the justice for what you have done to /me/, you hypocritical little whore?" Sola only snarls back at her, baring her teeth at Padmé like a beast, her hands hooking into claws at her sides and flexing restlessly, as if she would like nothing better than the chance to launch herself bodily at Padmé and tear her apart with her own bare hands. Sola’s hatred beats at her like a cloud of razor-tipped black wings, buffeting Padmé and tearing into her with hostility and fear and fury, the emotions so primal and all-consuming that Padmé can’t get a feel for anything that might be beneath them, not even the root cause of all that black hatred. Reflexively narrowing her eyes in concentration, Padmé pushes herself as far into the Force as she can dare to go without fear of tumbling down into it and becoming a part of it as she would have, on the death of her body, if not for Qui-Gon. Then, choosing words that will hopefully help to lead her to the truth, she makes her reply to the still snarling woman.

"You are mad if you think that you deserve justice for things that were done to you by your own ally, Sola. Your own actions kept him from being brought to justice for such evil deeds! I grieve for the lives that were lost because of the evil actions Sidious incited others to take, true enough. I mourn for the lives of the nephew and niece I was never able to share in, since those lives were cut so untimely short. But I will not let you cause me to blame myself for deaths that, ultimately, lie squarely at the feet of your own ally and apparent Master, Sola. I feel sorrow for the loss of your children, but no guilt will I accept for those losses. Sidious it is who was responsible for their deaths, and yet it was to Sidious that you pledged your allegiance, willingly betraying your own blood and your own people in order to ally yourself with him. You even deliberately broke your vows to me, to keep my handfasting to Anakin a secret, in order to better serve Sidious. Did you honestly believe I would let so traitorous an act go unchallenged?" /Padmé demands, allowing her momentary incredulity over Sola’s deranged excuses for her choice to ally with Sidious to harden into disgust with the woman as it occurs to her just how incredibly twisted up inside and completely self-centered and selectively blind to reality Sola would have to be to fool herself into believing such a load of codswallop. A moment later, she has her answer, as she realizes how oddly equivocal Sola feels in the Force, beneath all of her apparently righteous indignation and wronged fury. And Padmé understands, then, that the question of whether Sola has ever actually entirely convinced herself of what she is accusing Padmé of is essentially beside the point: Sola’s supposed grievances have never really been anything other than an excuse for her to go ahead and do what she wanted to anyway – which is, apparently, to humble her little sister in any and every way possible – without having to be bothered to feel bad for wanting to do it in the first place. In that moment, her incredulous disgust crystalizes into an emotion so far beyond mere fury that alternating blasts of soul-killing cold and bone-cracking heat pour off of her in rippling waves that are only half confined to Force, battering up against the two stunned and silently watching and listening Jedi Bendu and sending them staggering back away from her as if from a sudden strong gust of wind, and Padmé finds herself snarling down at Sola, her hands knotted into tight fists. "You did, didn’t you? You truly thought that your treachery would go unnoticed and unchallenged. You’ve become so adept at twisting and mentally editing reality to suit your own purposes that you actually fooled yourself into believing that you are untouchable. And since you’ve managed to hide your true nature for so long without being found out, you assumed that no one would ever catch you at this, either."/

But, "Treachery? Treachery! Why, you bald-faced little hypocrite! /How /dare you speak to me of treachery after all that you’ve done?" Sola only howls in return, so incensed that she forgets herself and actually surges to her feet upon the mattress, lunging awkwardly towards Padmé and causing herself to crash gracelessly back down onto the mattress, falling so heavily that she appears stunned, for a moment. But only for a moment. Soon enough, Sola is climbing back up onto her knees, shaking her head violently in an effort to clear it, and this time, when she turns her face up towards the apparition of her little sister, she doesn’t even bother to try to hide either her fury or the truth about her own nature. The blue of her eyes her eyes have turned a hard, almost metallic golden amber, and those eerily shining bestial yellow eyes are Sith through and through. And because she is, at heart, a Sith, Sola continues to try to bring Padmé pain with her words, snarling accusatorially, "You sold your soul for a man you could never have and then bartered your body to another for nothing more than the semblance of a greater closeness to the one you could not have! You betrayed everything you’ve ever claimed to believe in, for that illusionary closeness! You would’ve found a way to surrender the entire galaxy, if you’d thought it might bring you closer to Obi-Wan Kenobi! You certainly ignored the best interests of the peoples of this planet, in exchange for his continued favor! And if you’d just had the sense to stay alive, you would have singlehandedly delivered Sidious his Empire, you inconsiderate, faithless little – !"

Padmé, though, has had enough and more than enough of Sola’s soulless and ultimately hollow and baseless hysterics. "By all the stars of all the galaxies of all the universes that ever have been and ever will be, Sola, /do not push me. Just do not. I am in no mood to be tested further. If you have nothing of any sense or substance to say, then you will will be silent, or I swear to you that I will silence you myself. I did not /come here to listen to the rantings and ravings of a woman who has allowed envy and anger to corrode her mind and heart and drive her to embrace the same sort of self-aware and deliberately chosen madness that the Sith embody! I am not interested in the hollow excuses that you’ve constructed for yourself after the fact in an attempt to disguise and alter the true motivations for your treachery, so that you might try to justify to yourself actions that are as unjustifiable as they are inexcusable. I am here to render judgment on you for your faithlessness. That is /all I am here to do, in regards to you," Padmé declares, letting enough of the Force seep into her words to make it clear that she means each and every syllable she is speaking as the absolute truth. But Sola only continues to glare at her with those hideous hard bestial eyes, cloaked in hatred and rage as if they were living things, a pair of enormous wings to be furled and unfurled at a moment’s notice. She opens her mouth, preparatory to launching into yet another round of malfeasant prevarication meant to do nothing but cause pain, but before she can do more than draw breath to speak Padmé takes hold of all of the Force that she can gather in upon herself and uses it to bear down on Sola, leaning on her mind and her will for all that she is worth. "If you speak to me again, then you will speak only the truth of your treachery. And, in speaking it, you will know that truth down to your very core and no longer be able to hide from it or turn the knowledge of it away from you or twist that understanding into more false justifications for your behavior."/

The Force generally can’t be used to influence those who have been trained to use it in such a manner, since Force-sensitives generally do not have weak minds or wills, but the vast majority of Sola’s strength in the Force isn’t her own natural talent but rather the twisted result of power that has been stolen from others or glutted upon the suffering of other beings. And she is nothing like Sidious, whose vast intellect and even vaster personal power within the Force had made him a colossus in the Force, a towering monolith essentially touchable only by power equal to or greater than his own. Sola, instead is like a venomous and bloated insect – dangerous for the webs that she can weave and the poison of her sting but essentially puffed up on the stolen life-energies of others, without which she would be utterly insignificant, and, irregardless of all she has stolen, still easily smashed flat by a power greater than her own. Thus, Sola’s hard amber eyes immediately glaze over and she begins to recite, in a low, rapid monotone, "This is how it will be: they will turn back to me. I want a way to turn the attention of my parents, my husband, my children, everyone/, back to /me and away from her/, and I will do anything and everything that might be asked of me in order to do so; and, if they will not willingly turn, then I will help Sidious ruin her so that I can give them reason to regret ever having chosen to pin all of their love and regard upon /her/, leaving naught but the dregs of their affection for /me/, even though /I was the one who came first and I was the one who loved them first and I am the one who has always loved them more and easily could have done more and better by far than she ever did, to earn their regard and their love, if only I’d been given the same chances, the same resources, that she always had and in spades! They will regret having chose that stupid slut over/ me/; and then they will not scorn me and pity me but love me, and I will not feel the guilt so much, and we will be together again as we were before she came and as we would be if it were not for her and we will all be one family, whole and true, and better by far than ever we were before! But if they will not cooperate, if they will not turn away from her willingly . . . This is how it will be: they will come back to me . . . "


Sola’s words turn and redouble, small and indistinct, every sentence repeated over and over again, and at some point she even rises and tries to pace, twitching her pinioned hands at nothing and gesturing off towards someone who is not there, moving like a caged animal as far as her restraints will allow her, over and over, as if attempting to mime the motions of a restless circuit of pacing, moving in beat to the cadence of her own dark poison. And, with a sudden sick horror, Padmé realizes that Sola, in response to her Force-issued command, is reliving a moment that must have occurred years ago, back when the woman had first pledged herself to servitude to Sidious, in the moment just before she went to kneel before him and swear herself to him and his cause. These are the thoughts she had then, the reasons why she joined him. If thoughts and reasons they may indeed be called . . .

Padmé is about to demand that she cease speaking when Obi-Wan, with a hollowness to his voice that suggests a depth of pain and horror at least the equal of Padmé’s, quietly says, "That is enough, Sola. You are condemned, by your own words. You need not tell us any more. Be still and silent, now."

Padmé is a little startled by the sound of his voice, flinching reflexively in spite of herself. Caught up in her own anger and the confrontation with Sola, she’s nearly managed to forget that Obi-Wan and Anakin are also in the room with them and that the two men have been watching and listening to them all the while. Turning around slightly – enough to be able to see them without having to take her eyes off of Sola (who she simply does not trust enough to look away from, not even subdued as she is and held passive within the grip of a Force-command for stillness) – Padmé notices that the two Jedi have deactivated their lightsabers, though only Obi-Wan has returned his hilt to his belt. Anakin, looking pale and faintly green, is still holding on to his, his grip so tight that the metal casing looks as if it should be nearing the point of creaking ominously beneath the steady pressure. /"I’m so sorry you had to hear that. Beloveds – " /Padmé begins to try to apologize.

Anakin cuts her off before she can finish the attempt, though. "I am not. We needed to know. We had a right to know." The grim tone of his voice, in combination with the look of pain and betrayal lingering in the back of his eyes, strikes Padmé with the force of a blow and she flinches away again from him, instinctively, hurt by his hurt. She immediately opens her mouth to try to apologize again, but Anakin only gives his head a single firm shake and tells her, in a tone much closer to that of an order than a request, "Don’t, Padmé. It’s not your place to protect us any more than it is your place to apologize for the evil in Sola’s heart."

"Husband – "

"Don’t/, Padmé. I don’t know how or why it is that you’re still here, but /this /is /not your battle," Anakin cuts her off again determinedly, his face hardened with hurt and his eyes distant with distrust.

"Ani, /please – "/

"Unless you wish to explain to us both how it is that you are still here and why it is that you’ve chosen to reveal yourself only now, Padmé, I would suggest that you please step out of the way," Obi-Wan cuts in, his voice still hollow with pain though his face is as hard and closed-off as Anakin’s.

"Obi-Wan, /am’chara/, I can explain – "

"Then explain. By all means, please, explain, /wife/," Anakin snaps, cutting her off again harshly. "Because right now you look suspiciously like the opposite of what Qui-Gon and Dooku have become, in the Force, and, given both the depths of Sola’s treachery and your sudden inexplicable ability to use the Force when Obi-Wan and I both know that you had absolutely no talent for it while you were alive, I’m having a hard time trusting that you don’t mean some kind of harm, here."






Again, this scene picks up immediately in the next chapter!