dlm4 - Tumblr blog

dlm4 · 10 days ago

Note

In this trying time (3 hr AO3 maintenance) do you have any wips to share?

“Kidnapped?” Padmé asks, frowning. “On Naboo? Are you sure?”

Aayla Secura isn't someone Padmé has more than a passing familiarity with, just a fleeting impression of contained mirth and good humor, beauty and tempered ferocity in a fight. Even that small amount of knowledge of her person, though, is enough to know that this serious, almost grim cast to her features is unusual. She curls her arms across her chest, blue eyes dark and mouth pulled tight, and her voice has an edge of certainty, as immovable as stone as she says, “I'm sure, Senator. I just don’t have proof that the Senate will accept.”

Padmé manages not to grimace, though it’s a close thing. With the war turning in the Separatists’ favor, there's almost no chance that the Senate would approve any Jedi leaving their post for any reason, and particularly one with a frontline role like Aayla. The 327th has had some of the most dangerous assignments of the whole war, but—

Clearly it hasn’t been enough to win her any favors from the Senate. Not even a friendly ear.

It feels, a little, like addressing the full Senate when she was fourteen, standing before them and practically begging for them to help Naboo, only to have all the faces there turn away as one. Smaller stakes, maybe, than a full planet being on the line, but Aayla is seeking help for her Master, and Padmé can understand that.

But…word that there was a Shadow on Naboo stirs something like alarm, deep in her chest, though she controls it, locks it behind an iron wall where a Jedi will only feel the vaguest traces of it. After Anakin, she has practice at that sort of thing. Useful, now, knowing that someone else was poking around on her homeworld.

“Why would a Jedi Shadow be on Naboo?” she asks, and when Aayla's eyes narrow, she raises a hand. “Knight Secura, I just want to understand. My planet is hardly a front in the war, and we’re well-removed from most supply lines. It seems a strange place for a Jedi to go when the Separatists have just started a push on all fronts, and the Republic is back on its heels.”

Just for a moment, there’s a flicker of self-consciousness that she buries as best she can, a vivid awareness of the comm in the bottom drawer of her desk, the code she memorized before destroying the note. But—there's no way any Jedi could know about anything relating to her personal matters. Even a Shadow. Most of them are far too busy to look into a single Senator’s life. It’s one of the only reasons, Padmé is sure, that her marriage to Anakin survived as long as it did. Not that it matters any longer.

Finding out just why Quinlan Vos was on Naboo needs to be a priority, though. Padmé can't risk anything else slipping through the cracks.

Aayla signs, lekku curling, and her tense posture eases, just a for a moment. “I'm sorry, Senator Amidala. Quinlan never even mentioned to me that he would be on Naboo, much less what he was doing there. But the last message I got from him was alarming. It must have been important, and I think it put him in danger.”

Padmé curls her fingers against her palm, not letting her nails dig in even though she wants to. She’s seen Jedi working often enough not to doubt Aayla's assertion, even if there isn't proof most of the Senate would accept, but—

Naboo shouldn’t be drawing any eyes, let alone dangerous ones. Not now. Not yet.

“Naboo's security forces haven't alerted me to any strange activity recently,” she says, frowning, but she pushes up from her desk, steps around it to face Aayla more squarely. “What leads you to believe Master Vos is on Naboo?”

For a moment, Aayla hesitates. Then, with a breath, she pulls a comm out of one pocket and holds it up, letting the blue glow flicker to life.

“This,” she says grimly. “I was in a battle when I received it, so it was left as a message. If I had known, I would have answered, but—”

She breaks off, and Padmé doesn’t need to be an empath to feel the self-recrimination that vibrates through the silence.

“—need you to contact Tholme,” Vos is saying when the message starts, clear despite the faint buzz of the image, his words quick and almost desperate. He’s curled over, hunched, with one hand pressed against his side in a way that makes it clear he’s injured, and Padmé frowns. She doesn’t know Vos well, either, but she’s only ever seen him cheerful and laughing, perfectly willing to tease Obi-Wan and good-natured about being teased in return. This is about as far from that as she can imagine.

“Please, Aayla,” Vos says, urgent. “Tell him it’s about the Mask—”

A blaster shot, the crack so loud and close it makes Padmé flinch and twitch back. Vos jerks too, spinning to the side and out of frame, and in his place a figure arrows across the field of the projector, so quick that Padmé can't pick out details. A blaster fires again, and there's a cry, a splash—

Aayla freezes the image there, one fractured, half-blurred shot of curved earth and white pillars and a wide stretch of water, and Padmé goes still, alarm rising.

That’s Naboo. That’s Theed. She knows it down to the last stone, and particularly that space.

“That’s beneath the Royal Palace,” she says, and keeps it even through force of will. “Knight Secura, what was Master Vos doing in Naboo's palace? What Mask is he talking about?”

He can't have known. He can't. Apailana is the only other person besides Sabé who knows, and she wouldn’t betray Padmé for anything.

Aayla switches off the projector, shaking her head. “I don’t know,” she says grimly, lekku twisting with worry as she meets Padmé’s eyes, desperation just hidden behind a Jedi's serenity. “But I would like your help to find out, Senator.”

The last time Padmé traveled to Naboo with a Jedi, it was Anakin accompanying her as they fled from Jango Fett's assassination attempts, and nothing about that trip sits easily in her memory.

This trip, Padmé thinks ruefully, looks to be just as stressful, if for rather different reasons.

“You're sure your men can spare you, Knight Secura?” she asks, even though she knows what the answer will be. Sabé, at her right hand, is managing to keep a perfectly blank face, but Padmé knows her well enough to see the way tension lingers in the perfectly straight line of her spine, in the angle of her chin as she carries Padmé’s bag aboard the star skiff.

The slant of Aayla's mouth is rueful. “At least temporarily,” she says. “The 327th is on leave awaiting a resupply and a new batch of recruits. Until then, I can help look for my Master.”

At the very least, the skiff is quick enough that it won't be as long a trip as the one with Anakin, undercover as refugees on a public transport. Padmé forces herself to focus on that and smiles, making it as warm as possible. “We welcome your help, Knight Secura. A Jedi is always a valuable ally to have.”

Sabé, at the edge of the cockpit, slants her a look, but Padmé pretends not to see it.

Aayla glances back towards the entrance to the port, a handful of seconds before a clone trooper in gold-marked armor rounds the corner, moving quickly. “If you’ll excuse me, Senator,” she says politely. “I’ll meet you on Naboo once I've finished seeing to matters here.”

Some part of Padmé was expecting Aayla to push onboard, settle in, ignore all niceties in the name of what she wants. Jarring, almost, to realize that she isn't going to, and it makes her waver, just for an instant. Makes her hesitate, nerves curling in her stomach, because the lack of that is somehow just as unsettling as the presence of it.

But—better. Better this way. Padmé needs to speak to Sabé somewhere there's no chance of being overheard, and hyperspace is the best option.

“Very well,” she says. “I need to meet with the queen once I arrive, and I’ll inform her you intend to join us.”

“Thank you.” Aayla bows, polite, and then straightens, giving Padmé a smile that’s bright and warm and full of relief, so pretty it hits like a blow, makes Padmé’s breath want to catch. “Thank you again, Senator Amidala. I can't tell you how grateful I am that you were willing to help. And that you believed me.”

“I trust the Jedi,” Padmé says, and—her throat feels just a little tight around the lie. That curl of attraction makes her turn her face away, uneasy, and she brushes down the skirt of her dress, doesn’t let her fingers dig into the blaster-proof fabric. Not lightsaber-proof, though. She needs to look into that, see what Yané has come up with. One more thing to do while she’s on Naboo, even if she hadn’t planned to return for at least a few months.

“The Jedi trust you as well, Senator,” Aayla murmurs. “We count you as one of our greatest allies in the Senate. Please, excuse me.”

She turns, moves quickly to meet her clone commander, and Padmé watches her for a long second, trying not to let her gaze linger on the fall of Aayla's lekku, the sway of her movements, perfectly graceful and controlled.

Her throat feels tight again, and she turns away, takes a breath. Dangerous, something in the back of her mind whispers. Too dangerous. Not something she can risk again, no matter how pretty Aayla is.

Sabé is waiting for her at the top of the ramp, her gaze fixed on Aayla's back. There's no attraction in her face, though, just buried wariness, and as Padmé makes her way onto the skiff, she deliberately closes the door and then says quietly, “My lady, will the Jedi be joining us?”

Padmé shakes her head. “She’ll join us on Naboo,” she says. “You have a copy of the message?”

“Of course.” Sabé follows her up to the cockpit, sliding into the copilot’s seat without hesitation. “Teckla and Dormé have everything settled here. Your presence shouldn’t be missed.”

Not unless Anakin comes looking for her again, Padmé thinks grimly. He can tell when it’s a Handmaiden playing her, and she doesn’t trust that he won't say something to give Dormé away. She should have made herself more than clear enough last time he confronted her, but—

Anakin has never been good at taking no for an answer. That’s the problem.

80 notes · View notes