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“Aviné Bakrin, Eighth Handmaiden in the Second Class for Padmé Amidala”

01.) Application: Her older sister doesn’t want her to submit an application for a handmaiden position, and, since the untimely deaths of their parents five years ago in a speeder wreck, Ella’s word has generally been law in their little two-person household, but she wants very badly to get out of Nakerasi and this seems like the most effective way to get out and to stay out, without having to barter herself to some man as a suitable wife like a peddler of flesh, and so she seems to agree that it’s too dangerous and then waits until Ella has gone in to work for the day and sends the application anyway.

02.) Alike: Except maybe for her nose, Ella looks more like the Queen than Aviné does (she and her sister look very much alike, true, but Aviné is extremely petite for her age and has been told by her family Healer that she’s still most of a hand shy of what her full height should most likely be, within another year or so, and her hair is also lighter than both Ella’s and the Queen’s hair, being naturally closer to the color of honey than it actually is to brown), but Aviné knows that a little hair dye from some color crawlers (and also some curlers, if necessary, if the Queen doesn’t decide to straighten her naturally curly hair, instead) will take care of that, just as thick soles and higher heels will make up enough of any height difference between her, Amidala, and the rest of handmaidens for her to be able to blend in with them well enough, and, in any case, she is an intelligent girl of (basically) of the right age and slender body type, with a proven interest at school in the realm of political science (given her concentrations in both Nabooian and galactic law), and she has no health or family issues that would keep her from being accepted, so really, the only question is whether or not her scores will be high enough to impress those judging the applications for suitability, and so she agonizes over that for the two weeks it takes to get a response . . . and an offer for a place near the end of the second training class.

03.) Proud: Ella isn’t at all happy with her, for going behind her back and submitting herself as a possible handmaiden candidate when she’d thought that they’d agreed that it was too dangerous, but she can’t help but be proud of Aviné for being so promptly accepted into the handmaiden training program, and, in the end, after a few spectacular fights and more than a few tears from both of them, Ella hugs her tight, declares that she knows Aviné will do their family proud, and tells her, in no uncertain terms, that she is taking her shopping for some new clothes, so she won’t have any cause to feel underdressed amongst the other handmaiden hopefuls.

04.) High: The pay for handmaidens is, in her opinion, shockingly high – easily thrice what Ella makes, as an assistant to the local magistrate, and on a par with what some of the city governors and town representatives make, at least in the smaller cities and townships, supposedly to make up for the danger and the fact that handmaidens are expected to eventually help the Queen with the everyday running of the state – and so she insists that, since their clothing and cosmetics and necessities and such are all going to be provided for them by the Queen (so that it will all match properly), her wages are to go into a joint account and that Ella is supposed to use this money to go back to school on (since Ella never got to finish her schooling, on account of their parents’ sudden deaths and the need to take care of Aviné), or else she’ll buy a year’s worth of tuition at the Theed Royal Academy itself if Ella thinks she’s going to try to get around using the account by refusing to pick a school out for herself.

05.) Afford: Naboo is an extremely peaceful and highly prosperous planet made even more wealthy by its successful plasma trade, and she supposes the government can easily afford such apparent extravagances as the high pay and free, high quality, personally tailored clothes and things for the handmaidens and chosen companions/guardians of its highest officials (since apparently the Queen has prevailed upon the newly elected and extremely young Princess of Theed, Ellie Skye, to invest in some handmaiden guardians of her own); nevertheless, though, she can’t help feeling a bit overwhelmed (and a little bit guilty, after having been a cause of such hardship for her poor sister) by the whole process of being measured and fitted and outfitted with training clothes and uniforms, nightclothes, casual clothes, etc., by the Queen’s own tailors.

06.) Examination: One of the principal handmaidens for the Queen – Rabé, a pretty girl with black hair whose lightly caramel colored skin and distinct, slightly clipped accent reveal that she is from the southeastern region of the main Nabooian continent – touches her hair lightly, during a session of examination in which each potential handmaiden is scrutinized for resemblance to the Queen and to each other and arrangements are made to provide the cosmetics needed by each individual to softly and skillfully disguise the more obvious differences in appearance, remarks that it is a pity the Princess of Theed is too young for Aviné to be able to act as a handmaiden for, as it will be a shame to cover up that golden hue and make her solidly brunette, and then shocks her by going on to add that, if she were more well known at court, they could avoid dying it, as they have done with Rabé black hair and Eirtaé’s blonde hair and would do so as well for Dané’s red hair, if only she were not so skilled at mimicking the Queen as to be more useful as a decoy than as a mere distraction for the eyes amongst the handmaidens, as some variety is needed to keep others from noticing how alike and how like the Queen the handmaidens all are.

07.) Retiring: She doesn’t know how to take compliments, really – she’s always been the shy one, the retiring one, the one who took classes from home not just to save on money and to let her work some, part-time, as a virtual tutor, but also to save herself the hassle of having to deal with being out amongst a crowd of strangers all the time – and it’s a bit strange, to suddenly to find her relative shyness both a boon (as it allows her to easily fade quietly into the background, as a handmaiden) and her greatest weakness as a potential decoy for the Queen, given her entirely un-Queen-like tendency to start and stammer and blush furiously when spoken to or singled out for attention unexpectedly.

08.) Smile: She keeps catching one of the other girls in the class watching her with an odd little soft half smile, and it makes her paranoid enough that she might be doing something wrong that she finally gets up the courage one day to wait for this girl (a Tioné Skyon) in the hallway to ask her about it . . . and is stunned when the girl frankly replies that she’s looking at Aviné so much because she finds her beautiful.

09.) Relationship: She’s nearly fifteen and a half – one of the two oldest girls in her entire class – and, yet, she’s never been in a serious relationship (or indeed much of any kind of romantic relationship) before (though of course she’s suffered through her share of foolish crushes on various holovid stars), and so she has no idea whatsoever what to do, and is unutterably relieved to find that Tioné is a slow, patient, caring, quietly instructive lover.

10.) Shock: It’s a bit of a shock, after almost a month of nonstop training and preparation, to realize that they’re actually going to be moving back into the Palace in a little over a week and will be expected to basically assume full-time duties as handmaidens soon afterwards, and excitement mixed with fear (for what if she isn’t ready? Even worse, what if she can’t do her duty, when push comes to shove and it’s no longer simply theoretical work and guardianship?) makes her jittery and nervous until Tioné takes the time to quietly point out that they’re all anxious, reassuring her that she’s not the only one who’s having some doubts.

11.) Interest: The Trade Federation never had any interest in them before King Veruna’s reign and before the Neimoidians began to rise to prominence within the Trade Federation itself, and she’s a little bit mystified about both the sudden passionate interest and unusual belligerence of the Trade Federation’s Viceroy about that interest, to the point where she cannot escape the thought that there seems something contrived about the entire situation, as if some power behind the Trade Federation were somehow motivating the organization into making such a fuss for some reason that ultimately has little to nothing to do with their plasma exports.

12.) Condition: She has enough of a shine to her, in the Force, that she might have had a chance to be accepted and trained by the Jedi Order, if her parents had been willing to give her up to the Temple for such training, and this seems to be a condition that holds true with most of her fellow handmaiden trainees, so they are pretty much all equally aware that something bad is coming and almost all extremely careful to try to see to it that their families (be they actual blood relations, adoptive kin, or merely foster folks) get to a place of safety where this coming trouble hopefully won’t be able to touch them, but she is seemingly the first to whom it occurs to try to consciously use their sensitivity to the Force to try to get a better handle on whatever it is that’s coming, like a Jedi might do, by using that power to try to catch a glimpse of the most probable future, and the unofficial heads of their class – a trio of girls who remind her so much of their Queen and the Queen’s primary decoy in temperament and intelligence and poise that she finds herself having to struggle to get the idea out and not simply blush and stammer and stutter her way into silence – are so caught off guard by the suggestion that they are still trying to decide if it could be done safely when their time is up and they find themselves heading back to Theed and the Palace . . . and abruptly running out of time to try it.

13.) Better: The Trade Federation tries to demoralize the population by circulating footage of the Queen’s ship supposedly being destroyed during an unsuccessful attempt to run the blockade and so flee from the planet to Coruscant, but the handmaidens know better, and they immediately set to work with the Princess of Theed, trying to organize a resistance as they were ordered to do, despite the seemingly overwhelming odds against them, certain that their Queen will be returning to them at some point with help from the Senate or the Jedi or both, so they can reclaim their world from the Trade Federation invaders.

14.) Work: Eighteen days of running, hiding, hoping, plotting, raiding stores and performing acts of sabotage to hurt or at least block the Trade Federation’s efforts to consolidate a real power base by which to keep a stranglehold on their beautiful world, and their Queen finally returns, with a scheme so desperate, so insane, so reckless, that, if the favor of the Great Lady does but shine upon them, it might just be unexpected and crazy enough to truly work.

15.) Escape: They divide themselves up into many different parties to attack the Palace, each one with a cluster of handmaidens in battledress surrounding an apparent Queen of Naboo, and she and Tioné are assigned to a girl named Dormé from the third class of handmaiden trainees who looks shockingly like the Queen (even without her makeup and costume) and told to behave as though they were with the true Queen and to guard their decoy Queen with their lives . . . and so that is exactly what Aviné does, leaping between her “Queen” and a regiment of battle droids with Tioné and buying Dormé enough time to escape with her life, surviving the barrage of deadly fire just long enough to crawl across the hallway to her beloved and lay her head down on her chest and sigh quietly as she spares a thought for her poor sister (at being left behind, thus) before she breathes her last, a small smile of satisfaction softening her face as she slips away.