#voting for this senator seat is wild

[sevendeadlysams]

-

[angelseraphines]

ATTACK OF THE CLONES | CHAPTER SIX

“beneath the veil of midnight.”

the estate of the rharrellis family had always stood apart from the others, nestled not atop the soft golden hills of the lake country as the famed summer retreat of the house of naberrie was, but rather tucked into the crescent edge of the sapphire cliffs of southern naboo, where the ocean roared far below in solemn cadence and wild seabirds wheeled endlessly in the sky. here, veils of mist drifted in from the shore to weave around the white marble columns, catching in the flowering trellises that draped the terraces in riotous bursts of indigo and coral-pink. the scent of salt and rain hovered over the air like a forgotten dream, and the breeze carried the echo of sea-horns calling to ships too distant to see.

within the solarium, an airy, domed chamber of crystal glass and carved silversheen stone, the morning light glowed soft and gidled. its warmth lit the delicate filigree of the floor mosaics, depicting constellations revered by naboo’s earliest settlers, and caught against the flowing sleeves of sheer silks and the sparkle of finely set gemstones. pale curtains stirred at the open arches, and the scent of morning tea, honeyed root and rivermint, wafted up from a low round table placed between long couches of cloud-colored velvet.

vasharre rharrellis stood near one of the wide windows, her profile caught akin to the light of a splendid painting. eighteen years of age, though far too young for the ache that had been placed in her chest, she wore the look of a young woman not untouched by sorrow. her beauty had deepened, no longer merely striking, but magnetic in its celestial and dangerous confidence. her long midnight-dark hair had been brushed until it shimmered with violet undertones, half pulled back with a silver clasp shaped like a falling star, the rest falling in soft, enchanted waves to her lower back. her skin, pale as porcelain and as flawless, caught the light in a way that made her appear stunning beyond belief.

she was dressed in a rich mulberry gown, deep and wine-dark with a sheer top layer of gauze that fluttered with her every movement, hemmed in glass-threaded embroidery shaped like rising flame. the bodice curved along her figure, boned and wrapped in crisscrossed plum silks, with a neckline that plunged daringly, though not obscenely, into a heart-shaped dip, revealing the tender glow of her collarbones and the pale curve above her sternum. cinched at the waist with a silver belt patterned in constellations, the gown flared outward in fluid layers like ink spilled across parchment. around her neck, as always, rested the nova star pendant, her own, the original, its gem glinting with internal light as if stirred by some force no one could quite name.

her handmaiden, ebos, knelt beside a low table, preparing herbal tea in silence. she had grown into her beauty quietly, the coltish edges of her youth now softened into grace. her golden skin glowed beneath a pale blue wrap, her curls pinned back with white-gold combs, and her hands, nimble as ever, moved through the tea ceremony with practiced reverence. she glanced once toward vasharre, concern flashing across her face, but the handmaiden said nothing.

seated somewhat apart, upon a chaise upholstered in a fabric dyed with pressed sky-blossoms, sat senator padmé amidala. her posture was as composed as ever, her hands folded in her lap, though her expression bore the wear of recent weeks. she was dressed beautifully in formal senatorial attire, a robe of layered creams and golds, rich but not ostentatious, befitting both her former queenship and her current station. the edge of her mantle was embroidered with naboo script, listing the names of the provinces she had once ruled. though still radiant, she seemed drawn, shadows beneath her eyes betraying nights of poor sleep and endless debate. her mind was far from the loveliness of the morning, focused instead on the looming senate vote, on the ever-worsening tension with the separatists, and on the bitter knowledge that the republic she had served with all her youth now trembled like a weakened starship on the verge of collapse.

she glanced toward vasharre, then turned her gaze outward through the open archway. “they are calling for war, sharre,” she murmured. her voice was soft, nearly lost in the wind. “and i fear the galactic republic will answer.”

“they already have,” came vasharre’s swift reply. “they just haven’t said it aloud yet.”

on the far end of the solarium, lounging against a sculpted divan in a swath of sunlight, sat lady avella otrikus. at sixteen, she was as dazzling as any coronation jewel, her presence shimmering with youthful elegance and wry disdain. her curls, dark chestnut and thick, were loosely gathered at the nape of her neck and adorned with a strand of freshwater pearls. she wore a deep slate-gray fur draped over her slender shoulders, a gift from some northern emissary, paired with an embroidered lavender tunic. her indigo eyes, deep as dusk, scanned the open book of poetry in her lap with slow absorption.

“to speak of love in wartime,” she recited, without looking up, “is to speak of fruit ripening beneath the shadow of falling ash.” her voice was lyrical, lightly mocking. “how sentimental.”

vasharre did not smile. “and how accurate.”

avella turned a page with a flourish. “then perhaps we ought to all be fruit trees. doomed, but poetic.”

padmé inhaled softly through her nose, though whether it was amusement or unease, none could say.

“avella,” ebos said, with gentle reproach, “perhaps to do not be so grim so early.”

“grim?” avella blinked gently, her expression far too elegant to be called smug. “i merely read aloud. blame the poet.”

“we blame the galaxy,” vasharre murmured, eyes cast toward the tranquil ocean.

outside, the sound of a droid-drawn carriage passing by the outer courtyard floated up faintly through the breeze. the world beyond the estate moved on, elections continued, armies gathered, planets broke their alliances, and men whispered in dark chambers, but within these walls, the heirs of naboo’s past and the few defenders of its future sat beneath stained glass windows, wrapped in silk and old songs, knowing too well that none of their finery would protect them from what was coming.

in the distance, a thundercloud loomed on the edge of the sky, unseen but sensed.

within the inner solar of the rharrellis estate, the light had turned cooler as the morning aged, and the shadows that had once stretched long across the marble had grown compact and silent. the wind outside had soothed, and in its stead came stillness, dense, as if something were listening. the great chamber, once built for salons and music, had taken on the atmosphere of a war council cloaked in silk. every noble woman in the room was radiant in her own particular manner, but none were idle. the troubles of the republic’s unraveling, its wars, its whispers, its pending vote on the grand army, was stitched into every fold of every gown and woven into the air between words.

seated on a high-backed chair draped in silver-threaded velvet was lady hiarmen rharrellis, elder cousin to vasharre and widow of the late lord pavanak mindorón. hiarmen, always more enigmatic than maternal, bore the mourning veil not in fabric but in manner. she wore no black, only a steely gown cut clean across the collarbone, its shoulders capped in filigreed silver, the entire effect metallic and sharp, mirroring the cold silver pins twisted into her dark coiffure. at her side sat her four-year-old son, orren, the last heir of the mindorón bloodline. he had the fine golden hair of his late father, and eyes as pure a blue as lake virin’s shallows. the boy sat peacefully, curled like a painted cherub on a low cushion near his mother’s slippered feet, playing with a miniature starfighter carved from japor ivory. occasionally, he glanced up at the room’s adult conversations with a sharp, nearly preternatural awareness that belied his age, though it vanished whenever hiarmen’s hand swept absently across his curls in a gesture that was more habitual than affectionate.

hiarmen herself was as ever, austere, severe, and unreadable, her beauty no less captivating for its frost. “perhaps we ought to all take knights,” she remarked, eyes glinting as she addressed no one in particular. “for if the separatists are half as efficient as they claim, we’ll each need one at our shoulder, perhaps even in our beds.”

padmé gave a rare laugh, half exasperated and half sincere. “i can’t imagine the senate approving a budget for that.”

“perhaps not,” hiarmen returned smoothly. “but our fathers once appointed knights to ladies of state, not merely as guards but as champions. maybe it is time the practice was restored.”

“speak for yourself, my lady,” came the voice of lady kilea marel, stepping into the conversation like the clash of a training blade. “i am my own knight in shining armor.” she stood vastly apart from the rest, at the periphery of the stained-glass alcove. her face, alabster and charming, was turned toward the window, though her tone was grounded, serious. she was every inch the daughter of lord namun marel, commander of the naboo army for over three decades before his death, and the last of the marel military line. though clad in a noblewoman’s attire of cream and bronze, her bearing was martial. her gown was somple in shape but accented with pauldrons sewn with hardened beadwork, and at her hip hung a sheathed weapon that no tailor could ever conceal.

with crafted ceremony, she unsheathed the bone blade of her father. it gleamed pale ivory with veins of darkened fossil, the hilt wrapped in a cord of braided copper. she held it not for threat, but reverence. the sight of it caused silence to fall over the chamber, even avella setting aside her book to gaze upon it. there was legend behind that weapon, a blade carved not of metal but of the preserved spine of a virinus beast, slain by the founder of house marel during the ancient unification wars. it had passed from hand to hand down the generations, from lord to lord, and now sat in the hand of a daughter.

“my father meant for me to wield this,” kilea said plainly, her voice hushed, as if speaking not just to the women gathered but to the memory of her father. “it should have been mine to carry as commander of the army. but the council has granted it to havric tyrn.”

padmé’s face darkened. “we opposed it. former senator rharrellis petitioned twice. unfortunately, it was outvoted.”

“because they do not want a woman in command,” kilea replied, finally turning from the window. “not even a marel.” she glanced to vasharre then, and something older than frustration burned behind her eyes, something like betrayal born from the failure of tradition. “they would rather see our armies led by a tyrn, a man who knows nothing of war beyond strategy holos.”

vasharre, to her credit, did not grimance. “he was appointed not because he is worthy,” she said, “but because he is loud. and in this era, the senate listens more closely to bellowing than to bloodlines.”

“or to reason,” added hedna kanve, her voice frigid and refined. she had spoken little until now, her presence like a pillar of pale stone among the gilded furnishings. her hair was that impossibly pale shade that whispered of near-albinism, swept into a tall, severe twist. her skin was immaculate and nearly translucent, like white marble left beneath moonlight, and her dress was high-necked and unembellished, save for a brooch of the kanve crest. there was little warmth to her bearing, but there was gravity. she had long served as one of naem’s most consistent allies, though rarely appearing in the public eye. “the tyrn boy has never bled in the field. his hands are polished, not calloused. he wins favor, not battles.”

hiarmen exhaled through her nose, brushing a speck of dust from her sleeve. “and yet we entrust our defense to him. all while the separatists mass more followers by the day.”

avella’s voice came again from her corner, subtle but clear. “and the fool shall be given the helm when the wise lose patience.” she drew in a breath, slowly. “but what if the wise lose their voice as well?”

no one answered her. even orren had stopped fiddling with his starfighter, his small hand now curled around one of his mother’s jeweled rings, eyes wide with the realization that the room had grown heavier.

vasharre looked across the chamber and caught padmé’s gaze. they did not speak aloud what they both knew, but the meaning passed between them nonetheless, if things continued as they were, the danger would not be contained to the halls of the senate. it would reach naboo again, as it had once before, this time not with droid armies, but with something colder, darker. and this time, there might be no jedi master at the gates.

the soft murmur of the solar’s conversation was broken not by a crash or a trumpet’s call, but by the sound of swift, echoing footsteps against the marble corridor just beyond the great doors, measured, but too hurried to be ceremonial. the women turned, instinctively lowering their voices as one, the tension rising not with fear but with instinctive alertness, honed over months of political unease and whispered threats.

the carved double doors parted with a slow sweep, pushed open not by servant or steward, but by the nobleman himself, lord rodmin dalar.

he was tall, broad-shouldered beneath a high-collared mantle of obsidian wool trimmed in bronze thread, the insignia of house dalar pressed into the brooch at his chest. the color of his skin, a gleaming bronze that caught the filtered light of the chamber like aged metal, made the stark contrast of his gray-iron eyes all the more arresting. they were sharp, clear, and clouded now with urgency. his dark brown hair was tousled, the sort of dishevelment that came not from disorder, but from haste. his gaze swept the chamber quickly, across padmé, over vasharre, but when it paused, it seemed to hold.

for a breath longer than it should have, it looked to all the room as though his eyes had locked upon lady vasharre rharrellis.

she felt the intensity of that stare, every woman in the room did. his posture became rigid. the set of his jaw clenched. kilea marel, halfway through resheathing the bone blade, faltered in her movement and cast him a glance half-stung, half-flustered. hedna raised an arched brow, though said nothing.

vasharre, poised and crystalline, understood in an instant that it was not she he was truly seeing. no. his gaze, sharpened though it was, had strayed by mere degrees, just enough to settle on the comely ebos onvene, who stood a pace behind her, tender and attentive. vasharre felt it then, the heat in that lack of speech. the look that seemed to plead for time, for safety, for something unspoken. it lasted a second more, then lord dalar stepped forward with the full force of his voice, breaking the illusion like a blade through glass.

“my ladies,” he said, his tone more grave than usual, hoarse with urgency. “forgive the intrusion… but we have received another message. it comes from serenno. directly from count dooku himself.”

all the elegance in the room evaporated in a breath.

padmé stood quickly, abandoning her cushion. “what?”

dalar inclined his head toward her, his brow taut. “i rode from the palace without escort. the message came encoded, he made no effort to conceal it. in fact, he meant for it to be seen.” he looked then to vasharre, not with the veiled longing he had shown ebos, but with the grim burden of duty. “it concerns you.”

vasharre did not move. “he’s sent messages before.”

“yes,” dalar said. “but none so direct. or so… pointed.”

his voice lowered then, and he retrieved a thin holodisc from within the folds of his coat. “he speaks of the lady by name. again. he refers to your lineage. he knows of naem’s poor health and of senator amidala’s incoming arrival to the senate. he says, and i quote, that the delay in granting him the hand of lady vasharre rharrellis will be seen as an act of… resistance.” he glanced down, then looked to padmé. “the count says such resistance will be met with the same consequence as treason.”

a chill shivered through the solar. even lady avella closed her book.

padmé’s hands clenched, her voice vexed and stricken with masked fury. “he dares… he dares threaten naboo again…”

“he does more than threaten,” hedna said coldly. “he declares intention.”

vasharre’s lips parted. “perhaps… perhaps we should give him what he wants.”

“vasharre…” padmé turned swiftly, horrified.

“listen,” vasharre said, rising to her full height, her voice potent. “what if this ends the danger? what if it protects naboo, protects you, padmé… spares my father from further coercion? perhaps if i am handed over… there will be peace for naboo. for a time.”

“no,” lord dalar said auickly. his voice struck the room like a snapped bowstring.

vasharre looked at him, startled by the sharpness of his tone. dalar stepped closer, shaking his head. “no. you don’t understand the nature of this man. he does not want a bride. he wants a symbol. a hostage. a veiled heiress to parade in front of systems too frightened to speak against him. he wants your ancient bloodline, your image, your name. and count dooku will break you to have it.”

“he’s right,” padmé said, her voice barely above a whisper. “it won’t end with you. you’ll be the first… there will be others. he’ll push for more control over naboo. over its council. its army. he wants you because you are revered. beloved. because if he controls you, he controls all that listens to you.”

hiarmen, who had not interjected until now, slowly rose from her chair. “and you would be his pristine offering,” she said, tone as flat as her steel-colored eyes. “sweetened wine to mask the poison in his goblet.”

kilea nodded once, her hands resting on the hilt of her father’s blade. “we do not negotiate with men who speak in threats.”

vasharre’s eyes darkened. “but what if resisting him puts more lives at risk?”

“then we resist harder,” padmé said. her voice trembled now, but not with fear, with conviction. “we’ve fought too long to hand you over. not to him. not to any unworthy man.”

hedna kanve turned her head then, her pale brows lift not with disdain but with the precise exactitude of logic. “forgive me,” she said, voice glacial but never cruel, “but how long do we continue this dance? count dooku sends proposals draped in menace, and still we posture like this is courtship. why not end it? choose a suitor. bind her name to a loyal house, someone within our own grasp, lord vantrel of the lake provinces, or prince kallin of cymaeria, or even the miralan ambassador’s son, that gracious one, what was his name? yes, sirris the younger. any of them would render the count’s offer null.”

vasharre did not speak in response.

it was padmé who answered, stepping forward with restrained fire. “because lord rharrellis has made it plain. he will not see his daughter handed to anyone who would make a show of her. he says a marriage, if it is to come, must be chosen. and to someone worthy of the house of rharrellis, not merely its name.”

hedna pursed her lips. “and none have been found?”

vasharre touched her pendant then, the nova star that hung against her collarbone, silver and dark-violet and eternal. her fingers, slow and careful, wisped over the star’s points. no one else noticed the way her gaze dipped down, shadowed. no one but perhaps padmé.

she had turned them all away. the miralan heir, with his jade smile and woven robes. lord vantrel, whose hands had smelled always of wine and bark. kallin of cymaeria, with his polished shoes and perfect titles. the polite naboo magistrate from the hills, who wrote sonnets and offered roses. even the half-charming sirris, whose proposal had come wrapped in poetry from the stars and a fleet of peacock-feathered gowns. one by one, she had rejected them with grace, but with finality. always finality.

not because she thought herself above them. not even because of duty. not because of her archaic rharrellis lineage.

but because none of them were him.

ten years had passed since she had seen obi-wan kenobi, since he had vanished from her life akin fo a breath into fog. she had grown in his absence, learned to braid her own hair, hold her own gaze in the mirror, speak in a voice that empowered rooms. yet, in the hushed hours when she was not vasharre of rharrellis, not daughter of naem, not noblewoman nor emissary, when she was simply herself, he wandered her mind. she remembered his voice before it had deepened, the shape of his hands as they held his burning saber, the way he had looked at her when she gave him the pendant all those years ago with apprehension, but how he had kept the nova star regardless.

she had no right to think of him. he belonged to the jedi order, to the galaxy, to a cause larger than her and older than unrequited love. regardless, none had matched him. none had his wisdom. none had his fire beneath discipline, his restraint beneath passion. none were him.

and so she had refused them all.

ebos, who had until now stood unmoving in the background, took a single, slow step forward and stood nearer to vasharre. her presence was gentle, but grounding, like a thread of breath in a room about to shatter.

rodmin dalar looked at the handmaiden again, just briefly. not long. not obvious. just enough.

vasharre exhaled, closing her eyes for a moment. when she opened them, they glittered with something resolute.

“then we do not yield,” she said. “we do not bow.”

“no,” said padmé. “never.”

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

the soft droning of the diplomatic starcruiser echoed in the undercurrent of hyperspace, a low and steady rhythm pulsing through durasteel bulkheads and lacquered paneling like the heartbeat of a great, metallic beast in slumber. aboard the vessel, sleek, long-bodied, and armed discreetly beneath its polished silver hull, was a company far smaller than those typically sent to coruscant from naboo, but infinitely more valuable. the importance of kinship, of governance, of survival itself, had been distilled into this one craft, and every passenger aboard understood it.

senator padmé amidala sat noble in her seat, her posture regal even in weariness, the folds of her maroon traveling cloak pooling about her knees. though her bodyguard, captain gregar typho, had protested her traveling at all in the current climate, she had insisted, politely, firmly, and finally. the vote regarding the military creation act loomed like a shadow over the senate, and her voice, more than ever, was needed. yet she had conceded one precaution. she wore the garb of a handmaiden now, plain and dark and unadorned, while her trusted decoy, cordé, stood in her place, garbed in the pale ivory of a senator’s official dress, her features made near indistinguishable by artful paint and practiced elegance.

former senator naem rharrellis stood not far, leaning against one of the inner pillars of the main hold. his long white robes fell in measured folds, and though the lines of age tugged at the corners of his eyes and mouth, his presence remained statuesque, forged of old resolve and the intellect, cultivated rage of a father who knew the galaxy was coming for his daughter. he watched the stars pass in streaks beyond the viewport, but his mind was on other things, the senate floor, the proposals, and most of all, the men who had sent veiled threats in place of diplomacy.

vasharre sat beside him, sedate and luminous as moonstone, the nova star pendant glinting faintly in the half-light of the chamber. her hair was unbound for the journey, falling in long sable waves down her back, and though she wore a soft gown of blue-gray velvet, her bearing betrayed no softness. she had barely spoken since boarding, and not once since entering hyperspace. beside her, ebos rested with her hands neatly folded, eyes drifting between each passenger with quiet precision, never at ease, never entirely still. her gaze lingered once, only in a fleeting instant, on lord rodmin dalar, who sat across from her, half-shadowed and pensive. he did not look at ebos, not directly. but his fingers tapped once, twice, against the metal armrest of his seat.

hiarmen rharrellis, wrapped in a traveling cloak of slate blue and silver trim, stared impassively at the floor, her son left behind at the estate under guard, her expression carved of something colder than worry. her hair was coiled tightly into its usual crown, every pin perfectly in place despite the journey, and her hand rested against the curve of her hip, where a hidden blade lay nestled beneath the folds of her garments.

general typho entered the hold just as the ship dropped from hyperspace, a subtle jolt running through the vessel as it began its approach to coruscant. the stars resolved into the glittering orb of the republic capital, its atmospheric shell like a dome of polished chrome, reflecting the light of a nearby sun.

“we’re arriving,” typho said simply, nodding toward the front cabin. “prepare for descent. the escort is ready.”

the gleaming starcruiser descended through the coruscant skyline like a dagger slipping between silk. clouds tore aside, revealing the vast expanse of duracrete, durasteel, and light beneath them, the city-planet in all its overwhelming, vertical majesty. towers soared and flickered with traffic lanes, airspeeders wove between them like shoals of silver fish, and the senate building rose distant and stately in the horizon like a great marble crown.

the ship slowed as it neared the appointed landing platform. the site had been cleared and secured by the republic’s diplomatic flight division, and the platform, hovering against a sky of pale gold and shifting shadows, stood empty but for the escort ships and a few figures waiting in the distance.

cordé, dressed as the senator amidala, rose with slow grace, adjusting her robes with practiced precision. her facade of calm never broke. padmé, hidden beneath the guise of a handmaiden, stood nearby, her eyes darting once to typho, who gave a curt nod.

naem looked to his daughter, his voice lowered. “be vigilant.”

vasharre inclined her head. “of course.”

the landing gear touched down with a hiss of compressed air. the ramp extended.

they descended.

cordé moved first, the guards flanking her, her posture that of queen and senator and symbol. the others followed behind, padmé, disguised and watchful, naem and vasharre cloaked in nobility, ebos silent as a shadow, hiarmen with her eyes narrowed at the skyline, dalar rigid and tense. the air was dry and sharp. the wind smelled of oil and rain.

then, the platform lit up.

a sound, so small at first it could have been machinery, split through the air.

then the fire came.

an explosion, shattering and sudden, tore through the edge of the landing platform where cordé walked. the blast hit like thunder made visible, an eruption of flame, smoke, and shrapnel, a surge of white-orange heat that swallowed the escort guard and threw bodies like broken dolls. the noise was deafening, the light blinding, the tremor so violent the rest staggered, some falling to the ground from the force of it.

vasharre screamed.

it was not a shrill sound, nor long, but stifled and full of breathless horror, her hand shooting out as if she could pull cordé back, though the other woman was already lost in the column of smoke that burst into the sky like a dying star. padmé, attired in her handmaiden’s guise, rushed forward, calling the decoy’s name as more guards surged from the ship, weapons drawn, scanning the skyline for snipers, for drones, for anything.

naem stood frozen. typho yelled orders. hiarmen drew her concealed blade without a word. dalar shielded ebos instinctively, pulling her behind him, while she resisted just as instinctively, trying to push forward toward the blast.

but through the smoke, cordé emerged.

burned, bloodied, barely able to stand. she stumbled into padmé’s arms, her voice a thread of air.

“my lady… i’m sorry… i failed you…”

and then, before anyone could stop it.

she collapsed.

the atmosphere was chaos.

the smell of smoke had become thick and acrid, mingling with the stench of melted durasteel and the copper tang of blood. guards shouted into commlinks, their voices overlapping with the siren-like wails of emergency responders that had already begun to circle the sky above the landing platform. flame retardants hissed out in white clouds, swallowing the scattered debris and bodies still strewn in the blast radius. padmé knelt over cordé’s still form, clutching the dying woman’s soot-streaked hand, her face hollowed and stricken. there were scorch marks on her sleeves, and shards of broken plating embedded in her gloves, but she barely felt them.

a blur.

from the curling smoke near the edge of the platform, a figure leapt forth, quick as a shadow set alight.

they were masked, formidable and lean, wrapped in a black flight suit reinforced with armor patches, a long vibroblade in one hand, and a concealed holdout blaster in the other. their face was hidden behind a smooth black mask, the kind worn by outer rim mercenaries, with no insignia, no mouthpiece, only a narrow red slit where eyes should be.

they didn’t go for padmé.

they went for vasharre.

she turned too late. the figure was already almost upon her, blade drawn, the weight of their body crashing forward in a motion meant not to injure, but to seize. to take. arms outstretched, weapon ready, not for a clean strike, but for a disabling one.

ebos shouted.

“my lady!”

lord rodmin dalar moved.

his body cut between them like a gate slammed shut, shoulder colliding with the attacker’s midsection, driving them back. his own blade was drawn now, a short saber-knife honed for defense, its metal gleaming, but the masked figure was trained, precise, relentless. they slashed low, then high, forcing dalar to step back, blocking one blow after the next, his stance brutal and effective but rushed. the figure feinted and cut again, a near-silent assassin moving with the cold discipline of a hired hand who had rehearsed this ambush a hundred times.

vasharre staggered backwards, winded, heart thundering.

the masked figure moved to break past dalar, but he matched them again, drove them back with a slash that caught the side of their mask, revealing for a split second a sliver of dusky skin, a hint of teeth, nothing more.

a howl of pain.

the figure’s blade came down fast, too fast. dalar blocked it, but the angle was wrong, the contact jagged. the vibroblade sliced through the side of his left hand, and blood sprayed as his fourth finger was severed clean from the knuckle.

he grunted in agony but didn’t fall.

the attacker twisted back, saw the guards converging, and without another word or strike, dropped a flash grenade to the ground. a hiss, a pulse of light.

and they were gone.

the platform flared with afterimages. the flash blinded the approaching guards for precious seconds. when vision returned, the smoke had devoured the attacker whole. no trace, no trail. just the hum of security droids racing overhead, too late.

ebos dropped to her knees beside lord dalar, grabbing his wounded hand with trembling fingers, voice breaking as she shouted for medical attention. “hold still… don’t… my lord… please…”

dalar, sallow with pain, said nothing, but he looked at her, really looked at her, for the first time, not as a handmaiden or a shadow trailing behind vasharre, but as if he’d known her far longer. there was something devastated in his eyes, not just from the pain, but from the failure, he had nearly lost her.

vasharre had already run. her feet carried her to padmé, where the senator was still kneeling over cordé’s body, unmoving.

“padmé,” vasharre said, her voice hoarse from smoke. “padmé… please. we have to go. we have to go.”

padmé didn’t look up.

“cordé…she saved me. she should not have had to die…” her voice cracked. she clutched the fabric of cordé’s cloak as if it would anchor her, but her fingers were shaking.

vasharre bent down, her voice hushed, stable despite the quivering in her limbs.

“she did save you. she chose to. and if you stay here now, if you let her death prevent you, then it was for nothing. padmé… you have to go to the senate. the vote… they need you. not just naboo. the whole galactic republic.”

padmé looked up at last.

her eyes were full of smoke and sorrow, but beneath it, a spark of determination.

she let go of cordé’s hand and slowly rose, turning to typho. “ready the transport. we go to the senate now.”

and the wind changed direction across the landing platform, searing and rising, as the flame of war threatened to engulf the galaxy whole.

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

the city outside the wide transparisteel windows of the chancellor’s high-rise office was sheathed in shadow and silver, the lights of coruscant glimmering below like a thousand murmuring circuits strung across the skin of the planet. in the distance, the senate spire rose like a lance against the clouds, illuminated from within by the flickering urgency of the moment. though the hour was late by standard reckoning, the republic did not sleep, not now, not when the threat of war trembled closer with each passing day.

within the expansive chamber, polished and pristine, the scent of incense and the crackle of static from diplomatic feeds hung in the aur. at the center of the room, standing near his great desk of galactic wood and brushed metal, supreme chancellor palpatine folded his hands before him, the lines on his face deepened with a gravity too precise to be theatrical. his voice, ever measured and suave, now bore the shade of mourning.

“there has been….” he began, with a pause that let the absence of words stretch long enough to draw every eye in the chamber, “…terrible news.”

gathered before him in a semi-circle stood the members of the jedi high council, masters of immense power and tempered wisdom, their robes catching the low light in varying tones of beige, brown, and slate. seated among them was master mace windu, his expression etched in stone, every movement of his body controlled and minimal. beside him, a pace behind and to the side, stood his nineteen-year-old padawan kraen rharrellis, towering, dark-haired, composed. kraen said nothing, his posture still as sculpture, his hands folded neatly before him.

palpatine continued, his gaze sweeping across the assembled masters.

“senator padmé amidala of naboo was attacked upon arrival in coruscant earlier this evening. her diplomatic vessel, an official cruiser carrying only essential personnel, was bombed as it landed at the appointed platform. the senator herself would have perished, had she not been employing a decoy.” his voice lowered, touched with solemnity. “cordé, the woman who stood in her place, was killed in the blast alongside other officers of the naboo guard.”

a murmur rose from several of the masters, though none interrupted.

“more troubling still,” palpatine said, “was the secondary attempt that followed. amidst the chaos, when flames were still rising and the guard disoriented, a disguised figure emerged from the smoke. they attempted to seize lady vasharre rharrellis, the daughter of former senator naem rharrellis, and herself a prominent figure of nobility and political interest on naboo.”

a breath passed in the chamber. master ki-adi-mundi’s brow furrowed. master plo koon leaned forward imperceptibly.

palpatine’s voice remained sorrowful. “this was no uncoordinated attack. it was executed with precision. the decoy was targeted first. and once she fell, the attempt to capture the lady was made. had it not been for lord dalar of naboo, who suffered serious injury in the attempt to repel the assailant, i fear we would be facing not only these unfortunate deaths, but an abduction.”

master yoda, seated near the right of the semicircle, opened his eyes wider, his ears wavering. but he, too, said nothing yet.

palpatine allowed the true significance of his words to sink in, then diverted the conversation carefully, with the skill of a man who had worn robes of politics for far longer than he had worn the mantle of leadership.

“and all this,” he said, “while the separatist movement continues to gain momentum. more systems declared their intent to secede just this week. their governors speak boldly of independence, of sovereignty, and of their so-called right to form a new galactic alignment. we are watching the slow unraveling of the republic before our very eyes.”

his tone had grown darker, though still placid.

“attacks such as this, so calculated, so cruel, are not isolated events. they are part of a pattern. an escalation. the same pattern we have seen in the outer rim, in trade disputes, in the sudden withdrawal of planetary delegates from senatorial duty. the republic is not only fracturing, it is being pulled apart, piece by piece.”

master windu’s eyes remained fixed on the chancellor. his tone, when he finally spoke, was careful.

“and the senate? will they act?”

palpatine nodded, slowly. “they must. i intend to place the matter before the full assembly within the day. senator amidala remains committed to presenting her position, despite the attempt on her life. she has insisted she will not be silenced.”

a surge of approval moved through the room, though none said it aloud.

palpatine turned toward the window, his hands clasped behind his back now, the city’s glow washing across the front of his robes.

“we must consider, masters, what this means not only for naboo, but for every system still loyal to the republic. if figures like senator amidala or lady vasharre are no longer safe, even on coruscant itself, then what message does that send to our people? to those caught between loyalty and departure?”

he let the silence endure again, perfectly timed, then turned back.

“i bring this to you not as an accusation, but as an appeal. the jedi have long served as guardians of peace. now, more than ever, we must show the galaxy that peace is not weakness. that those who would terrorize and divide us will not prevail.”

kraen did not move, though his shoulders had become tense. windu adjusted in position, placing a hand at his side, a subtle gesture of instruction, remain composed, remain still.

palpatine’s expression softened.

“i ask only for your continued vigilance. not only for senator amidala and lady rharrellis, but for every voice that dares to speak for unity while the stars grow dim.”

he inclined his head then, grave and slow, the picture of statesmanship cloaked in grief.

“thank you, masters. for your counsel. and for your strength.”

the absence of speech that followed was not futile.

it was heavy. waiting. watching. the storm, though distant, was gathering. and its shadow had now reached the heart of the republic.

the door hissed open.

from the smooth archway at the far end of the chancellor’s office, two figures entered, their silhouettes outlined by the soft internal glow of the lift behind them. the older of the two strode with that unmistakable gait, composed, measured, a rhythm born not of affectation but of discipline long practiced. clad in the traditional robes of a jedi master, obi-wan kenobi walked forward with the assurance of one who no longer needed to prove himself. it had been ten standard years since he had first knelt before the council as a jedi knight. ten years since his master’s death on naboo. ten years since the war drums had begun to sound across the edges of the galaxy.

beside him walked his padawan, anakin skywalker, now nineteen, grown tall and strong and possessed of a presence that turned heads without trying. his robes fit him less like those of a monk and more like those of a young warrior, and though he carried himself with the restraint of training, there was a fire in his steps that had not yet been tempered by time. his pale blue eyes, sharp and searching, darted briefly across the chamber as they approached the chancellor, and though his expression was composed, there was the agitation at his jaw, in the way his gloved fingers curled and uncurled at his sides.

palpatine turned from the window with practiced solemnity.

“master kenobi,” he said warmly, hands folded before him. “and padawan skywalker. your arrival is timely. i trust the matter on anison has been resolved?”

“the borders have been secured,” obi-wan said calmly, bowing his head. “the local disputes were contained before escalation. there will be no need for further intervention.”

“excellent,” palpatine said. “the senate will be relieved. but i’m afraid your return brings you to graver matters.”

obi-wan’s brows narrowed. “has there been another attack?”

palpatine nodded. “worse. senator amidala was targeted upon her arrival to coruscant. a bomb was planted on her vessel. she survived… only because her decoy, cordé, took her place. the young woman was killed in the blast.”

anakin’s face did not move. but something behind his eyes constricted like a snapped cord. he looked down sharply, as if in thought, then back up again, his expression flat, his mouth set. only obi-wan noticed the way his padawan’s shoulder shifted, the way his breath lightly changed, his composure becoming almost too crafted.

obi-wan turned to look at him directly, and though his own expression remained neutral, his gaze was edged with steel. it was not unkind. it was not a rebuke. but it was a warning, a wordless, unmistakable command, control yourself.

anakin met his eyes. held the stare.

and looked away.

palpatine’s voice did not falter. “there was more. amidst the explosion, a masked assailant emerged and attempted to abduct lady vasharre rharrellis. the royal heiress was saved… barely, by the intervention of a naboo noble, lord rodmin dalar, who was severely injured in the process.”

obi-wan’s breath caught in his throat, though none in the room could have perceived it. there was no visible shift in his posture, no clenching of his hands or intense intake of air. only something faint and inward, a buried current moving beneath the surface of long-cultivated calm.

vasharre rharrellis.

it had been ten years since he had seen her, since that last day on the steps of the theed palace when she had pressed the nova star into his palm with shaking fingers and made him vow never to forget naboo, or her. and he hadn’t. though he had never spoken of it, never acted upon it, never permitted himself the indulgence of returning to that sincere memory as anything more than sentiment, the truth had remained hidden and buried inside him, he had carried that nova star pendant through every battle, every negotiation, every cold night in the outer rim where peace seemed like myth. he had not worn it, not openly, not since becoming a jedi knight. but it remained condealed, deep beneath the inner folds of his cloak, warm against his chest akin to a secret unspoken by the code.

he did not speak. he only bowed his head.

she is safe, obi-wan told himself. you are relieved because she is safe. nothing more. this is the duty of a jedi.

palpatine looked at them both, his eyes slow and obscured.

“i have spoken with her father,” the chancellor said, his voice dropping a shade.

palpatine’s pause was deliberate, the space between his words filled with the sound of distant traffic and the low electric hum of the city that never slept. he stepped away from the transparisteel windows and moved back toward the desk at the room’s center, the folds of his crimson chancellor’s robes whispering faintly against the polished floor. his eyes, pale, glistening, always calculating, landed once more upon obi-wan kenobi and his padawan, and for the first time since they had entered the chamber, the chancellor’s voice took on something resembling gravity.

“i have spoken at length with former senator naem rharrellis,” he began, tone slow and heavy with significance. “he is, as you know, a man of considerable dignity, one of our oldest and most loyal voices in the republic, even now, in retirement. but he is also a father. and tonight, he nearly lost his only daughter and heiress to his royal lineage.”

obi-wan remained unmoving, but his expression had cooled into something unreadable.

“senator amidala and lord rharrellis are in agreement,” palpatine continued. “the situation is no longer one of general security, it is one of targeted threat. the attack was not indiscriminate. both senator amidala and lady vasharre were singled out.”

his eyes now turned fully to obi-wan, though he spoke to the room.

“the jedi council has provided protection before. during the blockade of naboo, jedi intervention was decisive. and both of these young women have known the order’s protection, indeed, your protection, master kenobi.”

a flash moved across anakin’s face, a small glance, unbidden, toward his master.a remembrance, unspoken.

palpatine folded his hands before him.

“thus, i believe it would be most sensible,” he said, “for jedi master obi-wan kenobi and his padawan learner anakin skywalker to be assigned to this task. not merely for their proven skill, but for their familiarity with the senator and the lady in question. you both know them. you’ve seen what danger can look like when it comes to their doorstep.”

obi-wan inclined his head respectfully. “we would be honored to serve.”

palpatine nodded approvingly.

“and,” he added, after the barest pause, “i believe it would be prudent for padawan kraen rharrellis to join the assignment as well.”

the effect of those words rippled through the room like the abrupt fluctuation of water before a storm.

kraen’s icy gaze lifted, sharply. for the first time since entering the chamber, his composure diminished, but only somewhat. a broadening of the eyes, quickly masked. he did not speak. he did not dare.

mace windu’s reaction, however, was far less mite.

the jedi master took a single step forward, his voice deep and controlled.

“no,” he said. “that will not happen.”

palpatine’s brow moved up in a polite facsimile of surprise. “master windu?”

“you suggest that my padawan,” windu said, voice like stone under pressure, “be sent on a mission to protect his sister. a high-profile, emotionally compromised mission. without me, his mentor.”

“with respect, jedi master,” palpatine said smoothly, “i do not intend for him to be assigned directly to her protection.”

“that does not change the risk,” windu replied. “attachments are forbidden for a reason.”

“and yet,” palpatine said, taking a measured step forward, “his familiarity with naboo’s court, with its customs, with its terrain, his own nobility, makes him uniquely suited to this task. i intend for padawan kraen to be stationed at the rharrellis estate. he will stay on naboo, to oversee the protection of the courtly entourage and aid in securing the estate grounds. senator amidala and lady vasharre will be remaining in coruscant until the senate vote. they will be under master kenobi’s protection. the padawan will not even be in the same system.”

“but he will be on naboo,” windu said sharply. “he will be within reach. within thought. within memory. you do not understand the depth of family bonds in our order because you have never lived under our code.”

palpatine’s voice grew cool. “i understand enough, master windu, to know that the boy is a jedi. and jedi are trained to resist such distractions. or do you doubt your own teaching?”

kraen remained utterly motionless, though he stood now as if bracing himself for a blow.

the tension in the room turned brittle.

“this is not about doubt,” windu said. “this is about wisdom. you do not test a dam by flooding it. you do not test a wound by tearing it open again.”

palpatine tilted his head, his tone now quiet, coaxing. “master windu, are you saying your padawan is incapable of detachment?”

nobody was so bold as to speak.

then, a slow voice. ancient. patient.

“trained him, you have,” came yoda’s voice at last, breaking the tension not with tranquility, but with finality. “trusted him, you must. greater test, this may be. but if strong he is, prove it he will.”

windu’s body became rigid. he turned his gaze toward kraen, who met his master’s eyes, not with desperation, but with cold clarity. he gave a forceful, respectful nod.

for a long while, the chamber was devoid of speech.

then windu stepped back, spine straight as a drawn blade, and folded his arms into his sleeves.

“as the council wills.”

palpatine gave the vaguest of smiles.

“then it is decided,” he said. “master kenobi. padawan skywalker. padawan rharrellis. may the force be with you.”

as they turned to leave, palpatine’s eyes were focused not on windu, not even on kraen, but on obi-wan kenobi.

and though the chancellor’s face betrayed nothing, inwardly, the pieces moved across the board. perfectly.

obi-wan bowed. so did anakin. kraen hesitated a second longer, then inclined his head with crisp formality, though his eyes remained on the floor just long enough to betray the trace of thoughts too complex to voice. the tension in his posture had eased, and though his breath remained measured, there was something beneath it now, a thread of anticipation, closely held but unmistakable to anyone watching.

before they could turn fully to go, master yoda, seated with legs folded and fingers steepled upon his cane, lifted his gaze.

“one more thing, there is,” he said, his voice as slow and deliberate as the air that had thickened in the chamber. “for this assignment, changed the structure will be.”

all three men turned back.

yoda’s ears dipped slightly, as they often did when he spoke not merely as teacher but as seer. “unusual, yes. but needed, it is. due to the mission’s complexity… and strain upon bonds already tested…”

his green eyes flicked between kraen and windu.

“…master kenobi, temporary master to padawan rharrellis, you shall be.”

kraen’s head jerked up, not sharply, but with sudden, unguarded shock. his brows rose a fraction, and for an instant his face, ever schooled in calm detachment, registered something more human, a glimmer of long-awaited, surprised satisfaction.

beside him, anakin turned subtly, catching the change in kraen’s bearing with an indistinguishable look.

mace windu stood motionless. his face, carved in firm neutrality, did not reveal whether he had anticipated yoda’s ruling or not. but something in his expression had hardened.

obi-wan stepped forward a fraction. his voice was calm as ever.

“i will assume responsibility for him,” he said simply, “for the duration of the assignment.”

his tone was neither resigned nor pleased. it was the tone of a man who understood duty, who understood the gravity of it, and would carry it with precision.

yoda gave the most benign of nods.

“trust in him, i do,” the ancient master said lightly. “and in you.”

with that, the matter was sealed.

palpatine, ever the careful observer, gave a slow, approving nod. “then we are aligned. may this assignment bring guardianship and peace.”

the formality returned. kenobi bowed once more, as did kraen, this time with something near to reverence, though measured as ever. anakin followed suit, though his eyes never quite left the edge of the chancellor’s robes as they swept aside.

the three of them, master, padawan, and now second padawan, turned and moved toward the exit.

the doors opened again with a soft mechanical hiss, and the lights of coruscant reached through the corridor beyond, casting long shadows along the floor of the chancellor’s chamber.

as obi-wan passed the threshold, his cloak swept behind him, his shoulders steady, mind already adjusting to the burden of leadership now doubled. kraen moved beside him in clean synchrony, his steps exact. behind them, anakin followed with a quiet urgency in his stride, though his gaze was turned inward now, toward the news of padmé, toward the mission, toward whatever visions had begun to cloud his focus.

and just as the doors began to close.

“kenobi.”

the voice was low, quiet, shaped by years of authority.

obi-wan paused, only half-turning.

mace windu stepped forward, eyes fixed on him.

as the doors sealed shut behind them, a momentary stillness fell, cocooned by the low hum of repulsorlift engines outside and the ever-present current of the force that stirred faintly between masters of its path. obi-wan turned fully now, standing in the long shaft of gold light cast from the high windows of the chancellor’s tower, his brow faintly furrowed, the expression on his face neutral but attentive. mace windu, statuesque in the shadows, had not moved his gaze from obi-wan since calling his name.

a subtle darkening of windu’s eyes, first to anakin, then to kraen, was all it took. both padawans understood the unspoken command. they exchanged glances, before stepping back and moving toward the far end of the corridor, their boots scraping against the polished floor.

once they were out of earshot, windu exhaled slowly, folding his arms within his sleeves. his voice, when it came, was low and firm, wrapped in a layer of caution that only those who had stood beside him in the trials of the order would recognize.

“you understand the gravity of what you’ve just taken on,” he said. “kraen is not a simple assignment, kenobi. he is not stable.”

obi-wan nodded once, controlled. “i know.”

“he is reckless,” windu continued, voice sharpening, “impulsive when pushed, emotional beneath the surface. he has grown… disciplined, yes. but the fury remains. he hides it well. too well. that makes it more dangerous.”

obi-wan listened without interruption, his face composed, though his mind was already turning inward, recalling fragments of kraen from years past: the gifted child, born of nobility, drawn to the force like a torch drawn to oil. the one whispered to be the forceborn before the council’s instruments revealed otherwise.

“i saw it again last month,” windu said. “on serreno, during the peace talks. he broke formation when he sensed a child in danger. disobeyed orders. succeeded in the rescue, yes, but compromised the mission’s structure. the rest of the strike team had to adapt. that cannot happen again. not with these circumstances.”

obi-wan’s eyes narrowed, but not in judgment. more in recognition. he spoke calmly.

“you believe it stems from what happened when he was a young boy.”

mace’s lack of immediate response confirmed it.

“the boy they called the forceborn,” windu said at last, voice strained with remnants of the past. “the child of the bloodline, the lineage, the stars. and then the tests came. and the truth with them. not him. never him.”

a pause.

“that kind of disillusionment, it scars a child. deeply. more than most will ever admit.”

obi-wan did not say anything for a beat. “he conceals it well.”

“yes,” windu said. “but we both know that can be worse.”

understanding passed between them, old, reflective, unsentimental. two men who had seen too many boys raised into soldiers, too many promises of destiny undone by truth.

“you will see it,” windu said. “on naboo. the facade will slip. whether because of the mission, or his sister, or something else. when it does, you must guide him back. keep him aligned. remind him of what we are.”

obi-wan’s voice was dismal. “i will.”

but windu wasn’t finished.

he stepped closer, his gaze harder now.

“and you, kenobi, and skywalker, you must both remember the jedi code as well.”

obi-wan’s features did not shift, but the message landed all the same.

“attachment is not a temptation for the weak alone,” windu said. “it comes for the strong too. those who believe themselves beyond it. above it.”

obi-wan’s contemplation this time was long and and orderly.

finally, he nodded.

windu studied him for one more breath. then he stepped back and turned.

his long cloak swirled slightly behind him as he crossed the corridor, approaching kraen, who stood with his arms folded neatly before him, his posture composed but visibly tense. his eyes flicked to anakin, who stood a pace away, arms crossed and expression unreadable.

“padawan,” windu said, voice cool and precise.

kraen straightened, spine taut. “yes, master.”

“walk with me.”

without question, kraen followed him, the two of them moving several paces away into the adjoining corridor, the sound of their footsteps muffled beneath the vaulted ceiling. the air there was colder, less welcoming, lit by the low amber glow of hanging sconces, meant more for decorum than illumination.

after a concise, intense but whispered conversation, kraen bowed sharply, then turned and began the walk back toward the others. windu stood behind, eyes narrowed, unmoving as the shadows curved around his shoulders like armor.

the boy was walking straight.

but windu had seen too many boys walk into the burning fire believing it was duty.

and too many masters mistake it for fate.

anakin returned from the far end of the corridor with measured steps, his cloak shifting around his frame in restless folds. though his face was mostly still, his stride carried the burden of emotion barely held in check, tension wound unyielding beneath his chest, coiled and waiting. the low light of the chancellor’s corridor lent a burnished hue to the metal walls, catching the angular lines of his face, the youthful sharpness hardening into something older.

obi-wan stood where he had been, arms folded across his chest, posture calm in its discipline. if he had noticed windu and kraen’s exchange beyond the corner, he gave no sign. his gaze turned as anakin approached, cool and even.

“we’ll depart by second hour,” obi-wan said plainly, tone clipped. “you’ll be expected to prepare the travel manifest and coordinate with coruscant security. the senator and the lady will be under our protection from the moment of embarkment. there is no room for error.”

anakin nodded, eyes slightly narrowed. “of course, master.”

a pause stretched.

then, unable to help himself, or perhaps no longer willing to pretend otherwise, anakin said, “i assume we’ll be seeing her. padmé.”

obi-wan’s expression did not shift, but something in his bearing grew stiff.

anakin went on, voice more sentimental now. “it’s been ten years since i’ve seen her. she’s not the young woman i knew. but still… i need to know she’s safe.”

“you’re not meant to need anything,” obi-wan lectured, his voice resonant but disconcerted. “we are not here for feelings, anakin. we are here to serve. nothing more.”

anakin’s jaw clenched. “i’m aware of the code.”

“then remember it.”

the words fell like a closing gate, final and hard. obi-wan’s gaze was now staunchly on him, clear, unwavering, and stern.

anakin exhaled slowly through his nose, his frustration pulling at the corners of his mouth. “and when you see lady vasharre rharrellis,” he said, voice mockingly polite, “will you act as though it is nothing? no surprise, no pleasure in seeing her again after ten years? as though she is no more than a former senator’s daughter in need of our escort?”

obi-wan did not so much as flinch.

his voice, when it came, was iron wrapped in silk.

“i do not know what you are insinuating,” he said. “my task is to protect her. nothing else. as jedi, we strive for discipline, for honor, for service. not for the indulgence of reunion.”

anakin looked at him for a long while, his eyes narrowed, his expression unreadable. the light caught the scar that now sat faintly above his brow, an admonition of battle, of time passed.

“of course, master,” he said softly, voice smooth but distant. “duty. as always.”

obi-wan nodded, satisfied, or pretending to be.

they began to walk side by side, the hem of their robes brushing in stride.

anakin said nothing else. but his compliance was not the compliance of obedience. it was the compliance of knowledge. of a thought not spoken, but not forgotten.

and as they disappeared into the corridor’s vanishing point, only the click of their boots marked the long shadow of what was returning. not just a mission. not just a memory.

but the ghosts of what they had tried, and failed, to leave behind.

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

the turbolift hummed as it rose, its durasteel walls glinting in the soft glow of the overhead panels. the ascent was smooth, too smooth, it left no room for distraction, no sound but the mechanical thrum and the controlled rhythm of breath. anakin stood stiff beside his master, arms crossed loosely over his chest, fingers tapping silently against the fabric of his tunic. the silence between them was not tense, not quite, but laced with something unspoken, as if the atmosphere carried old conversations neither wished to revive.

obi-wan stood composed, arms at his sides, his cloak drawn clean over his frame, expression as measured as ever. though the lines of age were just beginning to sharpen the angles of his face, there remained the unmistakable trace of restraint in his posture, the same poise that had defined him since his earliest days as a jedi knight. his eyes were set forward, but it was clear he was aware of his padawan’s fidgeting.

then, as if sensing the quietude had stretched too long, anakin finally broke it, his voice a whisper and uncertain.

“i have heard… padmé has changed a lot.”

obi-wan glanced at him, one brow raising. “you remember her well, after all these years?”

anakin shrugged. “not really.” he paused. “just little things.”

obi-wan looked forward again, voice even. “then you’ll still treat her as the senator she is. we’re here to protect her, not to relive old friendships.”

anakin’s said nothing.

the turbolift slowed to a halt with a soft hiss. the doors parted, revealing the hallway of the senator’s high-rise apartment, sleek, clean, lined in warm ochre and brushed bronze, with long beams of coruscanti sunlight pouring in from the far windowpanes. two naboo guards stood stationed along the corridor, their gold-trimmed burgundy uniforms unmistakable.

the guards gave them a nod. obi-wan returned it politely, without breaking stride. anakin followed close behind, his steps only a fraction more eager, though he tried to contain it.

as they approached the entrance, the door slid open with the graceful hush of repulsorlift hydraulics. inside, the space was familiar in its structure but formal in tone, no sign of homeliness, only the dignity expected of a senatorial dwelling. rich fabrics, muted tones, quiet light. the scent of nerf-leather and fresh pressed silk lingered in the air, caught on the quiet breeze of the climate control system.

padmé stood near the center of the room.

she was dressed in formal attire, regal, elegant, but practical, a dark wine-colored gown that fell simply over her shoulders with no ornament except a small brooch of the naboo seal at her collar. her hair was pulled into a modest twist, framing her face in smooth, golden-brown waves. she looked older than she had on naboo, no longer the teenage queen masked in paint and duty, but the senator she had become, poised with confidence, shaped by war and rhetoric and consequence. but her bronze eyes were the same, dark, perceptive, always ahead of what was occurring.

she turned as they entered, and for a second, only one, she seemed to hesitate. then she stepped forward.

“master kenobi,” she said warmly, her voice gentle and courteous. “it’s been far too long.”

obi-wan bowed politely. “senator amidala. it’s an honor.”

anakin stepped forward, slower, less sure of himself. for a heartbeat he simply stared, eyes wide, shoulders stiff.

she turned her gaze to him, something soft flickering behind her expression.

“ani?” she said.

he smiled faintly, nervous. “it’s a pleasure to see you again, my lady.”

obi-wan shot him a glance from the side, astute but unmistakable.

padmé smiled politely. “you’ve grown.”

“so have you,” anakin said, and quickly added, “grown more beautiful, i mean. for a senator, i mean.”

she laughed, a short, surprised sound, charming in its honesty.

obi-wan cleared his throat.

“we’re here to assess the situation,” he said. “the chancellor has requested that we remain near until the vote concludes.”

padmé nodded, her tone sobering. “i’m grateful. after the explosion, i admit… i haven’t had a night of relaxed slumber since.”

obi-wan stepped further into the room, composed and focused. “do you have any reason to suspect another attempt?”

“no,” she said, then looked down. “but that doesn’t mean one won’t come.”

anakin’s piercing eyes never left her, but he said nothing more.

none of them spoke of what had passed in the ten years since, of the girl who had once worn a gilded crown and carried a blaster into battle, or the boy who had gazed up at her in awe as a child, or the jedi knights who had stood between them and fire. those remembrances sat beneath the surface, unspoken, waiting.

obi-wan folded his arms gently into his sleeves. “then we’ll stay as long as necessary.”

padmé met his gaze, then nodded.

“thank you,” she said. “both of you.”

and beyond the chamber walls, in the deeper rooms of the suite, others waited, unseen, for now.

but the past had entered the room, and none of them had left it unchanged.

the chamber beyond padmé’s receiving room was awash in a veiled light, softened by gossamer curtains drawn slightly over the arched windowpanes that overlooked the coruscant skyline. the city beyond glimmered in hues of gold and silver, its towers catching the dying light of the sun as it dipped beneath the curve of the upper atmosphere. sound here seemed muted, as though the room itself had been carefully set apart from the rush and chaos of the galactic capital. there was something sacred in the stillness. like a held breath.

obi-wan kenobi stepped through the threshold with the effortless grace of a man shaped by a lifetime of discipline and mastery. his boots made no sound across the inlaid flooring. his eyes, ever alert, swept once across the room and caught at once the figure that stood by the far window.

a young woman.

she was poised, her back turned toward him, head slightly tilted, as though studying something far beyond the horizon, something only she could see. her silhouette was outlined in silver, her form framed perfectly by the dying light of the world outside. at first, she was unfamiliar to him. only a figure, woman’s form clothed in elegance, framed in beauty.

but then, she turned.

and he felt something change deep within him, something ancient and forthcoming.

those eyes, those impossibly dark, abysmal, alluring eyes, met his, and all the intervening years ebbedaway in an instant.

they were eyes like the void between stars, endless and luminous in their darkness. and in that intimacy of enduring eye contact, recognition struck him not as a thought, but as a physical sensation, like the pulse of the force at the verge of battle. a name surfaced from deep within his memory, no longer attached to the child he had once known, but to the young woman who now stood before him.

vasharre.

the royal lady rharrellis.

she had changed, and yet she had not. she stood with the same poise she had even as a girl, but it had deepened, refined by time and ceremony into something celebrated. her hair, once curling down her back in restless spirals, was now a sea of midnight black, falling in lovely waves, the strands gleaming like obsidian under the amber light. her skin was pale as ivory, untouched by sun, shining akin to porcelain, and her mouth, once round with youth, was now finely shaped, stained tenderly rose, composed into a perfect serenity that held beneath it the suggestion of secrets.

she was dressed in a gown of midnight blue satin that shimmered like water beneath a full moon. the sleeves were sheer and draped from the shoulder to the elbow before falling away in long, translucent trails embroidered with glinting silver filaments. but it was the bodice that held his breath hostage, cut in a proud, square neckline, it bared the upper halves of her shoulders and collarbone and the delicate skin of her chest, revealing skin that shined like the inside of a seashell. it was daring, not indecent, but regal, the kind of reveal born of rank and confidence, not vanity. across that expanse of luminous skin hung her nova star pendant, resting perfectly against her collar, its glowing core catching the light as she moved.

she stood perfectly still.

and so did he.

his mouth opened as if to speak, but no words came at first. he simply looked at her, the lines of his face composed as ever, but in his eyes, something oscillated. something restrained. something like astonishingly.

she was no longer the girl who had given him a pendant beneath a war-torn sky.

she was a woman now. a heavenly vision dressed in stars and secrets.

and yet, she bowed her head gently, formally. “master kenobi.”

her voice was unchanged. elegant, polished velvet, soft but refined. naboo and noble.

obi-wan stepped forward and offered a low bow of his own, every gesture unhurried, precise, respectful. “royal lady rharrellis. it is… an honor to see you again.”

she smiled, and it was not coy, nor false. it was the smile of someone who remembered everything and chose, for now, to speak of none of it.

“it has been ten years,” vasharre said, clasping her hands before her. her rings caught the light, white fingers decorated in pearl and silver. “i was a young child then. i imagine i was hardly memorable.”

he permitted himself the lightest curve of a smile. “i remember you well, my lady. and you were far from forgettable.”

her otherworldly eyes held his a split second longer, studying him. then she said, with the slightest rising of her head, “you look the same. a touch more stern, perhaps, jedi master.”

he exhaled a gentle breath of amusement. “the years have had their toil.”

her gaze wandered downward. “and yet you continue to bear it.”

obi-wan kenobi followed her eyes, gradually, and knew at once what she meant.

beneath the folds of his cloak, beneath tunic and linen, pressed close to his heart, was the twin of the pendant that rested against her bare skin. the nova star. hers shone openly, a symbol, a relic, a bond unspoken. his remained buried. secret.

“i do,” he said softly. “some things are not so easily lost.”

she looked at him then, deeply, intently, but without challenge. only a kind of tender recognition.

then, proper once more, she stepped back. “you have my eternal appreciation for coming. the security measures are appreciated.”

he straightened, his voice once again that of the jedi of the order. “we serve where needed. protecting you and the senator is our duty.”

only duty, he told himself.

vasharre nodded her head once again. “then i trust we shall not prove too troublesome to safeguard.”

obi-wan kenobi allowed another whisper of a smile.

and though nothing more was said, the force between them darkened, not with danger, not with fear, but with fate, with the unsaid.

with the understanding that two paths had interwoven once again.

and nothing would be quite the same.

[bobwess]

(Things are bad. Don't take this post as an "everything is fine")

However the flurry of executive orders is designed to be massive, terrifying, and demoralizing.

People who are too tired or "it's all over" cannot in fact do anything to help themselves or each other. "It's already too late" yeah for some of it. But it's not over. It won't EVER be over. There will always be someone willing to stand up to it. While Trump won the popular vote, more people who voted voted against him than for him, and many people didn't vote. He doesn't have a majority of voters let alone a majority of the country.

He is also a lame duck president who burned a lot of political capital to seat Johnson in the House and has already pissed off a large number of congressmen and senators. Not to mention the republican party could barely agree on lunch let alone legislation in the last 4 years and they had a bigger majority then.

Laws are going to be slow. Executive orders are the only way he can get things done fast and many of them have been stopped by the courts. Many of them will be tied up in litigation for months or years. We don't know how they'll all shake out. Just because Trump said it is so doesn't make it true and automatically enforceable. "The Supreme Court is in his pocket" only sometimes. While they lean right, they don't owe him anything (lifetime appointments), and they've voted for some of these rights before. They're a wild card. But for a lot of them, they'll refuse to hear it and it'll be decided in lower courts. We just gotta see. But we can't take every executive order at face value (some of them being reported as orders were executive memos as well, which aren't enforceable they're just signaling).

"Things are already so bad for so many people." And it'll get worse faster if anyone who disagrees with it gets themselves so spun out they can't even begin to do anything. We can't let the news completely demoralize us before we even start.

[odinsblog]

So Henry Cuellar has been indicted for bribery, foreign influence and corruption. Henry Cuellar, the Islamophobic, homophobic, anti-abortion, anti-immigrant, anti-gun control “Democrat” who often voted with Trump.

Hm.

That’s wild af.

Too bad there’s not someone who was more honest and trustworthy who the DNC and the DCCC could have backed and promoted back when Cuellar was running for office.

That’s really too bad, especially since the margin for the Senate and the House will probably be sO damn close in 2024. Too bad there wasn’t a pro-gun control, pro-immigration, pro-LGBTQ candidate that Democrats could have rallied behind. Instead of funding a conservative, anti-abortion Republican who just called himself a Democrat.

Because if there really was a pro-choice, pro-immigration, pro-gun control candidate who Democrats could have backed, then a lot of people would probably be saying “I FUCKING TOLD YOU SO” right about now. Yeah, I would probably be a little bit pressed. Angry even.

But what do I know, right? I mean, it probably doesn’t matter that AIPAC poured millions and millions against…

Know what, never mind. I guess we’re all good doe, because there wasn’t anyone else who could have taken that seat, the seat that was in a safe Democratic district.

Maybe Democrats will learn and support an actual progressive next time?

It’s all too bad.

[velidewrites]

When the senator of Chandrila’s debts catch up with him at last, the Galactic Empire places a bounty on his daughter’s head. But Elain Archeron is cunning, and she will not go down without a fight—certainly not to the handsome Mandalorian hunter, intent on claiming his prize.

Notes: Part 1/2 of my contribution to Day 7: AU of @elucienweekofficial! Dedicated to @melting-houses-of-gold who patiently listened to my ramblings about this fic <3

Tags: Alternate Universe - Star Wars, Mandalorian Bounty Hunter!Lucien x Bounty!Elain

Warnings: None (filthy smut in part 2 as I am once again unable to write porn without feelings)

Read on AO3

Part 1

The ship is disturbingly loud.

Elain doesn’t know much about spacecraft, but the sputtering hum of her H-Type Nubian’s engines is concerning enough that she imagines anyone else in her position would feel unsettled. She should have expected the complications—she’d been warned about them, in fact—but she still shifts in her seat uncomfortably.

The yacht has been borrowed to her by Vassa, the former queen of Naboo and a longtime friend—and, for the past four years, a senator within the ranks of the Galactic Empire. Vassa herself had not been present on Naboo during Elain’s stay, called away by what she called a sham of a voting in the Senate, but her people had been informed in advance well enough to take care of the entire process.

Elain Archeron is being smuggled.

It is precisely why she’s been lent the H-Type. The ship is pre-Empire, which means it will—it should—fly under the radar, staying off the Empire’s scopes. It’s not that Elain is a fugitive—not yet, at least—but she has no doubt the Chandrilan government will alert the Senate of her disappearance once they realise Lord Archeron’s daughter has escaped. She isn’t important enough to have Destroyers sent after her, but Elain has never been one to take her chances. Especially not on a day like this.

Especially not on her wedding day.

She has been putting it off since the day she turned fifteen, and it was only the love Lord Archeron supposedly bore for his daughter that kept Elain from an arrangement to be put in place immediately afterwards, as per the Chandrilan custom. Now, though, at twenty-three…Elain had run out of excuses.

The message arrived while she was on Naboo, spending the summer with Vassa as she did nearly every year. A holo-recording of Senator Archeron happily announced her engagement to Graysen Nolan, the only son of Governor Nolan—perhaps the single richest man on Chandrila, Elain’s own family not even coming close in wealth. This will be good for us, Elain, her father said. Finally, the tide turns favourably in our direction.

Elain was not inclined to agree.

Vassa, thank the Maker, had helped her put the plan in motion almost immediately, arranging for safe, undercover passage to the Outer Rim through one of the old hyperspace lanes, abandoned by the Republic during the Clone War. Her intel claimed the route to be safe enough to pass through undetected, which, for Elain, was more than enough.

Graysen Nolan is not old or, superficial as it may be, unattractive by any means. He is quite handsome actually and, as her father so vehemently assured her, quite ridiculously wealthy—but the twenty-eight year old man has a flaw.

He’s an Imperial.

Elain would never dare voice it out loud—in the eyes of the Empire, she is all but a loyal subject, a pretty face to put on Chandrila’s posters and nothing more. But deep down, in a place deep and uncharted like the Wild Space itself, Elain despises them with her whole, insignificant being.

The Senator does not share his daughter’s sentiment, of course—he is a loyalist through and through. It’s what made Elain despise him, too—despise the coward hiding behind expensive gestures and grand speeches. The coward who’d chosen the Empire over his family.

Over the two daughters it had taken from him.

Elain closes her eyes and rests the back of her head against the yacht’s sleek wall, the cool metal doing nothing to ease the pain of the memory. The ship shakes slightly as it charts the course into hyperspace, sending tremors into her bones where it comes into contact with her body. This is one of the crafts with strong deflector shields, Elain reminds herself. As long as they manage to avoid the asteroid field, they will be fine. Probably.

The ship sputters again, and, once again, doubt washes over her in a surging wave. This is probably the fourth or fifth time in the past hour that she’s reconsidered this whole ordeal, the very first one nearly sending her into cardiac arrest as she first saw the ship, the once glistening silver now rusted and peeling off in certain places, as though damaged by battle. It probably was. Elain can’t even begin to count how many attacks on her life Vassa had endured during the Clone War, the controversial Senator constantly the subject of immense interest to the now-extinct Separatist leaders.

She looks around the space, the air suddenly tight. She knows this is going to work—has been assured of it a hundred times—and yet, for some reason, dread continues to build in her chest all the same. Through the wide viewport of the cockpit, even the stars seem to flicker in warning.

“Are we clear?” she asks the pilot nervously.

The pilot, a man Vassa has personally vouched for, half-turns to her from his chair. “We’re calculating the jump, my Lady.”

Elain shifts in her own seat. “How much longer?”

The ground shakes violently before he manages to open his mouth.

Her four guards—or Vassa’s guards, since Elain abandoned her own when she’d sneaked out from her bedchamber’s terrace—jolt upright, white-gloved hands wrapped tightly around their blasters.

“What is happening?!” Elain yells when the floor trembles again, the ship groaning loudly.

All the blood drains from the pilot’s face. “Someone docked in from below.”

Elain’s blood chills. “Impossible.” They couldn’t have realised it yet—she’d purposefully opted to run in the middle of the night, way after the Chandrilan guard conducted their security check. She expected them to find her bed empty in the morning—but not now, merely an hour after her escape.

The commander of her escort looks at his subordinate, his face tight and deep with what seems like thousands of creases. “Check out the disturbance,” he barks, the guard only nodding before he disappears from the cockpit.

“Empire?” Elain asks, the question no more than a whisper. The pilot shakes his head, looking at the beeping controls in disbelief.

“It can’t be—this ship is supposed to be invisible.”

Elain chokes on a breath. “Supposed to?”

The pilot seems breathless, too. “My Lady—” 

His words are interrupted by a singular shot of blaster fire as it cuts through the air. Then, a loud thud as a body falls to the metal floor.

Elain yelps.

One of her guards grabs her by the arm, his grip tight enough to crush the veins beneath her skin. “My Lady, we must hide.”

“Escape pods?” Elain pants.

The commander’s expression looks grave. “There are none on this ship.” He looks at the entrance to the cockpit, and a ringing silence ripples through the air as they all realise the guard has not yet returned—which means the body they’d heard was likely not the intruder’s.

“Hide her,” the commander barks to his remaining two men. “Seal the entrance.” And with that, he, too, disappears between the automatic door, the sharp whoosh of it closing foreboding in a way Elain can’t quite describe.

Not a single person in the cockpit dares to utter so much as a breath as they listen in to the commander’s steps, echoing through the passageway. One second passes, then two—then three.

There is a muffled sound of struggle before the blaster is fired again, yet another thud as what is undoubtedly the commander’s body falls to the floor.

What happens next is a blur to Elain.

The pilot sucks in a breath, and the two guards begin shouting at each other, one order after another as Elain is pulled back toward the small storage space hidden under the pilot’s seat. One of the men lunges for the door, his own weapon at the ready as he aims for the control panel. Elain squeezes her eyes shut, preparing for the shot.

Except that when the shot finally comes, it does not sound from her guard’s sleek, elegant S-5—the man hadn’t even managed to raise it toward the source.

No, it comes from a different pistol, rough and heavy, a trail of smoke hissing upward as the man’s body, too, slumps onto the metal.

Elain tears her gaze off her lifeless guard to look into the eyes of his murderer.

What she finds is a face covered entirely by beskar, the silvery helmet glinting even under the dying starlight.

The Mandalorian comes into view, his powerful frame scraping against the blast door as he takes a step forward, the sound as loud as the bodies of the three men he’d killed. Elain’s breath hitches in her chest, as though afraid to so much as graze the faded green of his chest plate, the metal she recognises as durasteel—hardly comparable to the sheer strength of beskar, but enough to keep the laser-like beams from piercing his heart—something many people have tried to do, if  the ashen marks staining the armour are any indication.

Elain’s own heart—one she suspects will not keep beating for long—thumps loudly in her chest as the Mandalorian man sheathes the blaster back into his belt, so many weapons strapped to its side Elain struggles to understand how he manages to walk with all that weight. He looks calm as he looks over the cockpit—over the three people still alive and waiting for his next move. Elain cannot explain how she knows this—but she swears she can feel his gaze pinned on her, even with his face hidden behind a black, T-shaped visor.

“Stand down, Mandalorian,” the last of her Nubian guards orders loudly, his blaster pointed straight at the masked warrior.

Elain feels his eyes drift away from her face, like a magnet releasing its hold as he looks over the guard with nothing more than an angle of his head. The man actually squirms under his scrutiny.

“I said,” he repeated, no longer able to hide the slight tremor in his throat, “stand down.”

To Elain’s complete shock, the leather-clad hand hovering above his belt falls loosely down his side. The guard, too, seems to release a breath. “This is a diplomatic mission you have disrupted,” he says. “You will be reported to the Guild—”

“I’m not with the Guild,” the response cuts in. It makes Elain shiver—his voice is low and deep, the helmet’s vocoder modulating it slightly, making it seem like a gravelly rumble from his throat.

Once the shiver passes through her spine, the Mandalorian’s words register. If he isn’t with the Guild…

“Hand her over,” he orders. “Now.” One word—deadly. He does not seem like the man to revel in hiding his threats.

The guard gulps, sensing it, too. To his credit, he still manages to tell him, “We will not.”

The Mandalorian’s vocoder sounds with a low hum, the sound seeping a scorching fire into her bones. “My orders are to leave witnesses,” he finally says, his metal-clad body entirely still like a predator fixed on his prey. “It’s a shame I happen to be forgetful sometimes.”

Elain’s heart threatens to stumble out of her chest. He came here for her, and the men sent to protect her—Vassa’s men—do not need to die trying to protect her from the inevitable.

It’s just her luck, Elain thinks bitterly, that the one and only time she’s ever tried to rebel, she has to be hunted by one of the most ruthless warriors in the galaxy. The Mandalorians are known for their violent ways and brutal efficiency—they are, after all, one of the Empire’s most loyal subjects, having allied themselves with Emperor Koschei the moment he came into power.

Since it isn’t the Guild, then, it must be the Empire who have sent this bounty hunter after her, which could only mean two things: her plot to escape her impending marriage had been discovered by Governor Nolan much earlier than she’d expected, or…

Or Father was in a lot more trouble than he'd originally made it out to be.

“It’s okay,” Elain breathes, placing a palm on the guard’s arm. “It’s okay—I’ll go with him.”

The guard shakes his head vehemently. “No—you can’t my Lady, we have been ordered—”

“It’s okay,” she repeats, then squeezes his shoulder. “Lower your weapon.” She turns to the Mandalorian. “I’m going to walk towards you now. Do not hurt those men.”

The bounty hunter does not move, and so Elain takes this as his agreement.

She takes a half-step—then another, crossing the space on shaky legs. She’s almost there—has almost reached that magnetic presence of his when she hears a light swoosh, and a click of metal.

“Lady Elain, duck!” the guard shouts, and fires his blaster.

Elain whirls back just in time to see him sink to his knees, his mouth agape, the hole in his chest sizzling with that same, smoky trail. She shrieks, running back toward yet another man who’d given his life to keep her safe—when a tight, steady grip on her wrists holds her back. “No more tricks, sweetheart,” his warning comes purring as her back hits the hard steel at his chest. Elain whips to face him again, anger stinging hotly at her eyes. “You said you needed witnesses!”

His helmet moves an inch as he seemingly glances at the pilot cowering in his seat behind her. “One is more than enough.” He jerks his chin at the trembling man. “Deliver the message to the Senator. He has seven rotations.”

Elain starts, “Do not—” but her words are cut short as the Mandalorian yanks her back. “Where are you taking me?” she breathes, her attention transfixed on the rough feel of his leather gloves against her bare skin. “Answer me right now, or I will not follow you anywhere—”

His steps come to a stop so abruptly she nearly slams face-first into his back. Slowly, he turns to look at her, silence passing through them in a tremor before he asks lowly, “No?”

Elain swallows. Hard. “No,” she says, accepting that the word might mean her death.

To her surprise, the Mandalorian lets go, crossing his arms over his chest instead, the silver vambraces clanking against each other with the movement. “Look, sweetheart,” he says, the nickname already making a flaming anger stir in the pit of her stomach, “the way I see it, you’ve got two choices: you either come willingly, or I make you.”

Elain grits her teeth stubbornly. “If you want to collect on your bounty, you’ll have to bring me in alive.”

His hands brace at his hips as he cocks his head to the side, and though the black of his visor is nearly impenetrable, Elain swears she saw a flicker of a smirk. “Lucky for me, my orders weren’t that specific.”

Elain’s blood chills.

“So what’s it gonna be,” he pauses, a hint of mockery in his modulated tone as he adds, “my Lady?”

Elain considers.

If Nesta were here, she would have opposed the Mandalorian without a shadow of a doubt, the cold venom in her words perhaps enough to melt through the beskar itself. But Elain had never been much like her elder sister—and so she thinks of Feyre.

Her heart clenches at the memory of her name, but Elain does not linger—instead, she listens to her sister’s voice the way she remembers it—calm and wise, far too knowing for a seventeen year old Padawan—and yet still unmistakably Feyre’s, blue-grey eyes twinkling with mischief as she spoke. Don’t worry, Elain, she had told her four years ago, they won’t see us coming.

No, Feyre, Elain silently agrees now, a plan already forming in her head. He won’t.

She points at the circular opening in the floor—at the ladder to the ship docked directly beneath. “Lead the way.”

—

Elain finds herself in the cockpit of yet another crumbling ship.

The Razor Crest is even older than the H-Type, the model predating the Clone War by at least four years. She supposes the advantage of staying off the scopes is worth it, though right now, she can’t possibly imagine why the Mandalorian working clearly on the Empire’s paycheck would ever need to avoid it.

She sits a breath’s distance behind him, watching as those leather-clad fingers press so many controls her mind begins to spin as they shoot into hyperspace, the blue-white blur of stars blending together a sight beautiful enough to appreciate even in Elain’s current predicament. The ship is fast, too, no doubt tweaked with improvements over the years. She wonders how long the Mandalorian has owned it, frowning as she realises she doesn’t even know how old the bounty hunter is.

She doesn’t even know his face, let alone his name. She would’ve guessed a bounty hunter of his skill would be renowned all the way to the Outer Rim. “What’s your name?” she asks him, curiosity getting the better of her.

He ignores her question entirely.

Elain huffs. “It is rude to ignore a lady, you know.”

No response.

That familiar frustration stirs inside her again. “If you don’t tell me, I’m going to have to simply call you Mandalorian.” Her lip curls. “Or just Mando, perhaps—”

He turns back to her at that, and Elain realises triumphantly that she’d struck a nerve. “You are not to call me anything,” he tells her gruffly. “And besides,” his seat squeaks slightly and he turns to face the viewport again, “Something tells me that you are no lady.”

Her eyes dig into his back, and Elain sure wishes she could will a burning fire into them right now. When she realises it’s a futile effort, she asks, “Where am I to sleep?”.

“Here.”

“Here?” she frowns, looking at the chair, already groaning under her weight. “Where are you taking me?”

There is a brief pause—as if he’s considering how much he can really tell her. Then, “Chandrila.”

Elain’s eyes widen. “Chandrila?”

There is a raspy sound coming from beneath his helmet that Elain can only take for a chuckle. “I’m not taking you home, sweetheart. Sorry to disappoint.”

Elain squints. “So he does have manners after all.” When her hope of hearing a retort fades away, she asks again, “How long before we get there?”

“Too long.”

“Are you always this infuriating?”

He simply chuckles again.

Elain leans back into her seat. “I’m going to need a change of clothes,” she announces.

A glimmer of surprise passes through the space between them—as if whatever the Mandalorian was expecting, it was decidedly not this. “What?”

“I have to change,” Elain repeats, making a point of gesturing to her Naboo-fashioned gown as he turns to face her again. Then, doing her best to sound as bratty as he surely expects her to be—as everyone expects her to be—she says, “Travelling in these is uncomfortable.”

She looks into his visor, which seems to stare at her blankly. “You can’t be serious,” he then says.

Elain tilts her chin up in challenge. “Have you ever worn a gown, Mandalorian?”

“You know I haven’t,” he grumbles darkly.

“Then you have no right to tell me what’s comfortable and what isn’t. These fabrics are heavy—”

“Beskar is heavy,” he cuts in.

Elain stumbles over a breath, irritated less that he’s thrown her off her track, but more that the bastard Mandalorian is right.

Still, she presses, “You’re a Mandalorian, and I’m not. I demand we stop on the nearest planet so that I may—” she hovers a hand over her form, “adapt to the situation at hand.” She angles her head. “Besides, I’m sure you wouldn’t want me to attract any attention now, would you? I am a Senator’s daughter, after all.”

For a moment, the bounty hunter says nothing, simply leaning back in his seat as he assesses her. She tries not to shift under the stare she knows lurks beneath the helmet, her mind for some reason wondering if his eyes are the same green—or silver, perhaps—as his armour. She immediately dismisses the idea, though—he burns far too hot for his gaze not to blaze with that heat in some capacity. Not that she particularly cares—Elain has simply never had the chance to speak to a Mandalorian before, and those that she had seen had not seemed to share this one’s sentiment to stay perpetually hidden beneath the beskar.

She decides to flat out ask him, then—if only to satisfy that strange curiosity in her chest—when he surprises her again. “Alright,” he says, his visor seemingly focused on the thick folds of her gown. “We’ll make a stop.” Then, he adds, his voice rumbling with warning, “But no tricks, sweetheart. You won’t be able to escape me that easily.”

Elain has to bite back a smile. We’ll see.

—

A mechanically distorted cough stirs her from sleep.

“We’re landing up on Llanic,” he announces, and walks away.

Elain sits up, her back straining from the worn-out leather of her chair, the heavy dress not helping it at all. She curses herself—and not for the first time—for not thinking to wear something allowing more flexibility as she’d dressed in Vassa’s estate. Though, Elain now supposes, that same gown is the only reason she now has the opportunity to escape.

Soon enough, the Mandalorian lowers the Razor Crest onto a landing platform. Despite its proximity to Naboo, Llanic looks nothing like the planet’s vibrant, ethereal ecosystem. Everything here seems dull and grey—even the people opting for garments of pale blues and sulking whites as they move around the settlement.

“Llanic is the smugglers’ den,” the Mandalorian explains, as though reading the thoughts from Elain’s face. “All of this,” he waves a hand, gesturing to the view ahead as they step out of the ship, “is to help them stay out of sight.”

Elain looks to her own dress, the deep amethyst standing out almost ridiculously, already drawing more than a few pairs of eyes. The shiny Mandalorian at her side, Elain thinks with a sigh, certainly does not help.

The last thing she wants is the attention of more criminals.

“We need to get you a change of clothes quickly,” he mutters, making Elain look up at him with a smirk. “I told you—” she starts, but he’s already begun to walk off the platform, his gruff, “No time” her only invitation to follow along.

Her eyes scan her surroundings quickly, noting a cantina farther out back, already humming with a strange music she doesn’t recognise. He leads them left, though, toward what seems to be the market—one crowded enough that Elain can’t help but loose a breath of relief.

It should be easy to get rid of him here, Elain thinks. If, of course, she is quick enough.

Feyre would have thought this to be no more than an adventure. Elain smiles, the thought pouring a surge of courage into her chest.

They stop at an Ithorian merchant’s stand, one of the largest ones on the stony street, as he grumbles something to a bartering customer. Elain begins to fumble through his selection, her mind already tracking her route of escape. She’ll find some other, proper clothes later—the only purpose of these is to serve as her distraction.

She picks up a matching set of a top and trousers of dusted ivory, and a beige poncho to supposedly help her blend in. She’ll have to pick out something similar later if she truly is to disappear.

Elain is already side-eyeing the cantina, the copular structure practically calling out her name far at the street’s end. Perhaps she’ll be able to find a transfer there—someone to get her off-world and, hopefully, as far away from the infuriating Mandalorian and the Empire as possible

A warm, heavy presence appears beside her, and she chucks the clothes into the bounty hunter’s hands. He only stares back, confusion rolling off of him in waves.

She can’t help but snicker. “You’re impossible.”

“I…don’t understand.”

Elain huffs. “Well, my apologies if I forgot to remember to bring my credits as I was being kidnapped,” she sputters, the word making the elderly couple behind the Mandalorian turn to face her with a frown.

“Be more quiet now, would you,” the Mandalorian growls, the sound a deep rumble from his chest.

Elain narrows her gaze. “Just go buy these, yeah?”

He chuckles at the apparent drop in formalities, though his voice remains firm as he reminds her, “Don’t move until I’m back.”

She smiles sweetly, motioning to the streets around her. “Where else would I go?”

He seems to agree well enough, because the Mandalorian soon disappears between the hanging layers of cloth as he moves towards the Ithorian seller. When the familiar glint of beskar vanishes out of her sight, Elain turns and begins to run.

The amethyst dress and the tightness in her back is a strain on her speed, but the adrenaline surging through her is enough to keep her legs moving swiftly. Not for the very first time, Elain wishes she had the lithe speed and remarkable strength both of her sisters have always displayed, their movements carefully supported by the Force.

The thought leaves her as quickly as it arrived as Elain makes a sharp turn, pivoting into a darkened alleyway that she hopes will discreetly lead her to the back wall of the cantina. Her steps slow, as though the silent darkness compelled them to do so—and Elain quickly looks around, letting herself take a breath before she continues on again.

“Not so fast, princess,” a low, hissing voice sounds behind her.

Elain’s feet freeze into the ground.

“Don’t be afraid,” it croons, stepping in closer. “It will all be over soon.”

Elain’s breath quickens.

The man, unmistakably a Trandoshan, slithers beside her, his scaled, greenish skin finally coming into view—but it’s not his appearance Elain finds her gaze glued to, but the long, heavy Mortar Gun resting in his large hands as he points it directly at her face.

“Sssuch a shame,” he muses. “To ruin such a pretty face. But I find myself in a desssperate need of credits, you sssee.” He angles his scaly head, yellow eyes narrowing on her. “The Empire is paying quite the sum for you, little princess. If it was any lower…I might have taken some time to play with you firssst.”

“A shame indeed,” a voice agrees somewhere behind him. “Unfortunately, your time seems to have run out.”

A single shot booms through the air before the Trandoshan evaporates into dust.

A Mandalorian—her Mandalorian, Elain realises—stands a few metres behind where the reptilian bounty hunter stood a moment ago, a forked sniper rifle Elain had never seen before still pointed at the dissipating dust.

“Where did you get that?” Elain breathed. Has he been carrying that weapon this whole time? Could he have turned her into…into this?

He shrugs. “Had it lying around.”

He reaches her in a few quick strides, his head dipping as he appears to be sweeping his gaze over her, assessing. “Are you hurt?” he asks.

Elain shakes her head, her body slowly moving out of stillness. “No.” She clears her throat, begging the Force to bring clarity into her voice. “Thank you,” she rasps, then sighs, exasperated. The Force had never seemed to be her ally, anyways. “I’m…sorry for running.”

He hums. “I knew you would try something eventually. You got lucky.”

Elain blinks. “You would call this—” she gestures to the Trandoshan bounty hunter’s remains spread out over the stone ground, “—lucky?”

He nods, strapping the rifle to his back in one, swift movement. “There are others out there who would not hesitate to kill you on sight. I’d say,” he adds, “you got more than lucky to end up with me.”

“How very fortunate,” she mutters. He only chuckles, though she feels as his gaze lands on her again. There is a pause of quiet between them before he finally asks, the voice behind the helmet softer, somehow, “Are you, though? Alright?”

Elain sighs. “Yes. I’m…” she searches for the word. Tired. Confused. Lost. “Hungry,” she decides.

Another chuckle. “Follow me.”

The cantina beams a more lively song as they enter, though Elain, despite all that thorough education she’d received, can’t seem to recognise the language. They take their seats at a booth stuck into a dim nook before a waiter approaches, his gaze shining with curiosity at the unlikely pair. “What can I get you?”

“Spotchka,” Elain sighs, earning yet another amused huff from her companion. “And—whatever your special is today.”

The man nods. “That would be the stew.”

“Perfect,” Elain says, then turns to the Mandalorian, the waiter, too, looking at him expectantly.

“That will be all,” he says tightly, his tone enough to make the waiter scatter immediately out back. Elain frowns. “Are you not going to eat?”

“No.”

“But—”

“I’m not hungry.”

Elain counters, “I have not seen you eat since you put me on that rusted old ship.”

The visor seems to glower at her. “The Crest is fine.”

“Stop changing the subject.”

“I’m not willing to discuss this, Elain.” She doesn’t think she’d ever heard his name fall from his lips.

Does he even have lips? Elain can’t help but wonder. He appears human, but beneath that armour, he really could be anyone. It’s not that she truly cares about his face—the curve of his nose or the angle of his jaw. But she wants to be able to see if his gaze burns as brightly as she’s been imagining it, like a hot, midday sun.

His tone does not invite such questions, though, so Elain gives up with a deep, long-suffering sigh. “Fine,” she says. “Tell me your name, at least.”

“No.”

“I’m sick of calling you the Mandalorian in my head.”

“Then stop thinking about me, Elain.”

She throws her arms up in exasperation. “You are impossible!”

He seems to snicker at that. “So I’ve heard.”

Elain sinks further into her seat. “Are you able to answer any of my questions, at least?”

He hums, making a show of considering. “Probably not,” he finally said, earning yet another huff from Elain. “But perhaps you can answer some of mine.”

Elain feels her brows rise. “Oh?”

He laces his fingers atop the table. “What has your father done to get the Empire to put a bounty on your head?”

That, Elain did not expect. “I thought bounty hunters were taught not to ask any questions.”

“To their clients. The bounty is a whole another story.”

“How convenient,” Elain murmurs, and, once again, she swears she can feel his smile in her chest. “Very well. If you must know, he borrowed some money—too much of it for me to even begin to describe, and all of it from the wrong people.” She chews on her bottom lip before quickly releasing it from her teeth, a sharp exhale pushing past her mouth. “It’s why my…engagement was arranged in the first place.”

“To the Governor’s son. So I’ve heard.”

“Yes, well, they had money. But look how that turned out.”

“Do you…” his helmet cocks to the side, as though from this new angle, he can read the answer simply by looking at her face. “Do you regret it?”

“No!” Elain quickly says. “Kriff, no—it’s why you found me on the Nubian instead of the planet itself. I was…” she clears her throat. “I was escaping.”

Silence falls, broken only for a moment as the waiter arrives with Elain’s food. She begins digging into the warm stew, realising the conversation has most likely come to an end, the Mandalorian seemingly gazing off into the distance.

But then, a quiet sound reaches her, so indiscernible she initially thinks she must’ve imagined it. “I’m sorry,” he says. “For disrupting your plans.”

Elain flashes him a cryptic smile. “My plans aren’t disrupted just yet.”

—

When Elain emerges from the Crest’s refresher, she finds the clothes she’d picked out at the market laid out on a new cot.

“We’re almost done refuelling,” the Mandalorian’s voice reaches her from where he leans against the ladder leading up to the cockpit.

Elain arches a brow. “What happened to not leaving your side for a moment?”

“Well, I trust you’re not reckless enough to jump out of our ship once we’re in hyperspace.”

Our ship?

Elain dismisses it as her mind playing tricks on her. “Thank you for getting these for me. Believe it or not, but that gown was uncomfortable.”

A grunt of agreement. “It sure looked like it.”

Elain takes the poncho into her hands, her palm smoothing out the fabric. “I’m sorry about nagging you earlier. I—I don’t know much about Mandalorians, I just assumed—”

“You assumed fine.” A deep sigh rattles through him as he bounces off the ladder, stepping closer toward her. “Not removing this,” he points to the shining beskar atop his head, “is my choice.”

Elain dares to ask, “Why, though?”

“Does it matter?”

Yes. No. Maybe.

No, Elain finally decides. Soon—within the next rotation or two, perhaps—the Mandalorian will hand her over to the Empire, a toy to toss over her father’s head. She’ll never have the chance to think about his face again.

Her expression must have told her enough, because his body seems to stiffen as he halts less than five feet away from her.

“Are they going to kill me?” Elain asks him openly.

Silence ripples through the air.

“The Empire doesn’t kill innocent civilians,” he says carefully. Elain can’t help but laugh. “Even if that were true, I am hardly innocent.”

He seems inclined to disagree. “Your father’s mistakes are not your own, Elain.” His words sound deeper than usual as he says them.

She shifts on her feet. “Still, I’m afraid my family’s sins are already beyond repair.” She sighs, a sudden wave of tiredness washing over her, as though the words alone were enough to make her body feel limp. “My…” she can’t say it, her throat tightening on its own as she tries. Elain simply looks away.

But then, a few shallow breaths later, a heavy weight rests on the cot beside her. “My father is the head of an…important clan back on Mandalore,” he begins to tell her quietly. “He’s not a good man—to say the least.” He clears his throat. “I have six brothers, each of them worse than the last, as if they’re all competing to see which one of them can become cruel enough to finally catch Father’s attention.”

Elain turns to look at him at that.

He continues, “I never wanted to be like them—any of them. My mother is the only good thing about my family, and she was the only one not to send bounty hunters after me when I finally left.”

Elain’s eyes widen. “You—you escaped from Mandalore?”

His laugh feels bitter. “There is no escaping from my family. I’m the youngest—not important enough for them to keep on wasting credits to drag me back, but, I suppose, a reminder annoying enough to make my life miserable for as long as they wished.” His hand flickers up for a moment, then falls back onto the cot—as if he was going to run his fingers through his hair before remembering the helmet shielding them from view. “So I cut the best deal for myself as I could—and I’ve been picking up the Empire’s dirty jobs ever since. I don’t like most of them,” he admits, “but…” the words trail off. He does not need to finish them for Elain to understand.

But I’m glad I met you.

It is why Elain tells him plainly, “My sisters were Jedi.”

The Mandalorian goes completely, breathlessly still.

Elain nods. “Traitors to the Republic,” she adds bitterly. “To the Empire. My older sister—Nesta…” she fights back tears at the memory of her icy eyes, softening whenever the two of them got to see each other. “She was—she was on Corellia when…when the Order was given. And Feyre…Feyre was at the Temple on Coruscant.” She swallows the thick words in her throat. “She was—she’s gone,” Elain finishes, unable to speak the full truth. It’s too soon—it will never not be.

Her sisters were discovered late—Feyre at six, and Nesta at ten years old, when all the other foundlings had usually come to the Temple at no older than three. But the great masters had foreseen something in the two of them—something Elain had never quite been able to understand without the Force whispering to her the way it did to her sisters. Something with the potential to change the Galaxy as they all knew it.

Whatever her sisters’ purpose was, it would never be fulfilled. It had never even been given the chance to.

“It’s how I know my father will not come for me,” Elain adds quietly. “When you hand me over to the Empire. He’d aligned himself with them when it took not one, but two of his daughters away. Now, it will take away the third.”

Once again, the ship is enveloped in silence.

It had been so long since Elain had last spoken her sisters’ names that she isn’t sure she’d even talked about them to anyone since their death. The Mandalorian is a quiet presence beside her, strong and warm even through the hardened metal encasing his body. It feels relieving to her to know that he, too, lives in accordance with the Empire’s cruelty not by choice, but by the lack of it, hoping that one day, he will be free enough to leave and never look back.

But then Elain is reminded that neither of them are free just yet—and that, while he might still be able to harbour that dream, it is already too late for Elain. That the only way for him to get a step closer toward it, he has to make sure Elain never gets to reach it herself. There is something about the irony of it all that makes her want to weep—and yet, Elain can’t bring herself to feel angry.

“I hope the Empire pays you well for all of this,” she tells him earnestly.

He turns to face her then—as much as he can with the self-imposed containment of his beskar—and perhaps it is merely wishful thinking, but, for a whisper of a moment, Elain knows with the utmost certainty that she saw a flicker of gold beneath the darkness.

His voice is quiet as he responds.

“Not nearly enough.”

—

Once again, Elain is violently ripped from sleep.

They cannot be landing already—Elain can swear they’ve only just left Llanic’s atmosphere, her face hitting the cot the moment the Crest’s navicomputer was programmed and the stars blurred into a singular light again. Chandrila is still a long journey ahead, at least two, if not three more refuelling stops since the Crest is unable to withstand such a distance on a single tank.

They aren’t landing, Elain understands as the last remnants of her sleep sharpen into reality—into the loud, flaring sound echoing off the ship’s tight space. Into the red light blazing on and off, illuminating her shaky hands as the realisation finally sinks.

The Crest is under attack.

Elucien Week Taglist: @melting-houses-of-gold @areyoudreaminof @fieldofdaisiies @kingofsummer93 @witchlingsandwyverns @gracie-rosee @stickyelectrons @selesera @sv0430 @vulpes-fennec @captain-of-the-gwynriel-ship @screaming-opossum @autumndreaming7 @sunshinebingo @spell-cleavers @starfall-spirit @lectoradefics @this-is-rochelle @goldenmagnolias @labellefleur-sauvage @bookeater34 @capbuckyfalcon @betterthaneveryword @tasha2627 @tenaciousdiplomatloverprune

[beepbeepmfkr]

The fucked up part is that I can't even make the post I wanna make explaining why this is bullshit because all y'all have already seen them.

We've explained to you so many times over that the inaction of the Biden administration was largely in part due to the fact that Trump had stacked the Senate and judiciary.

Y'all didn't care. You saw sleepy joe doing nothing and let your absolute absence of political knowledge run wild to decide that a protest vote was the right decision.

Y'all cried palestine, we showed you that Trump is besties with Net., has been instigating worse horror, And plans to turn the Gaza strip into fucking bit of seaside housing. Cool. Now the work we we're already going to have to do has gotten ten times harder. Thanks.

Y'all cried climate change, debt forgiveness - ignored the HUGE strides Biden has made on those ends because it wasn't perfect. Welp. Now we get to have Mr. Billionaire fuckface to make allllll of that worse

Idk. When y'all are done throwing your tantrums can we expect to see you at town hall meetings and supporting the nonprofits who put forth the ballot measures meant to support you? What's your plan for civic action for the next two years until election season comes again for the smaller seats?

Do you have any intention to get involved or are y'all just gonna stay little keyboard warriors doing absolutely not a god damn thing but whine and think about your fucking selves?

[dearyallfrommatt]

Well. Shit.

I honestly don't have too much to say. There's still some this-and-that to dig through, but it looks like we elected a brand new used car, one we know smells bad and burns through oil. He got even more votes this time. He ran a shit ground game, got stomped during the debates, constantly came off as a gibbering lunatic OR a gormless whiner, had a historically loathed veep candidate, & it looks like he'll not only get a commanding victory, right-wing dingbats across the country are getting seats. Cruz and Scott both got re-elected.

Philip K. Dick called the Nixon Administration - and the aura of fear & loathing that swamped the country - the Black Iron Prison. He thought the resignation of Nixon caused it to fall, but I'm more cynical than that. Ford pardoned Nixon and it just went to shit from there. Trump's a stooge as much as every Republican president since (maybe) H.W. Bush, & the GOP winning the Senate means they're about to go hog wild, son.

As a middle-aged white, cis male who owns land in rural Northeast Mississippi, I'm in basically the same shape today as tomorrow. I don't have kids and still know that's the best decision I ever made. Buckle up, neighbors. It's about to get Meaner and Dumber.

[missegyptiana]

each state gets electoral votes equal to their senate seats (2) and their house of representative seats (determined by population). so california has 2 senators + 52 representatives, so we have 54 votes in the electoral college. most of the states are winner take all, so if you get the majority of votes, you get all the electoral votes. maine and nebraska are a little more complicated. lmk if you have more questions!

ohhhh i see! thank u claire this helped a lot! it’s hard for me to learn and understand US politics sometimes so this helped!! this is so overwhelming and complicated like this system is wild

[mariacallous]

The man who became a figurehead of the January 6 Capitol riot is planning to run for Congress in Arizona, and he may not even be the most extreme candidate on the ballot.

Jacob Chansley, a January 6 rioter known as the QAnon Shaman who wore face paint and horns to breach the Capitol, pleaded guilty to taking part in the riot. Last week, Chansley filed a statement of interest to run for a seat in Arizona’s 8th congressional district. Chansley, who has lived in the district for 30 years, tells WIRED that he is running his campaign single-handedly and does not plan to accept PAC money. Though he’s not eligible to vote under Arizona law because he is still serving part of his sentence, Chansley is able to run for Congress.

“When I heard that the seat was available, I prayed on it for a while, and the message I got from God was, ‘Do it,’” says Chansley.

In Arizona, Chansley’s decision to run for office is almost standard. Though Chansley may be viewed as a fringe candidate by many, he is not an outlier in a district and state where election deniers and conspiracists are already front and center in the 2024 election races.

Ever since former US president Donald Trump lost Arizona in 2020, the state has become the epicenter of election denial conspiracies and efforts to undermine democracy. The state was home to the Cyber Ninjas–run GOP recount that cost taxpayers millions, and its voters are represented by multiple far-right extremist GOP lawmakers, including state senator Wendy Rogers and US representative Paul Gosar, who have boosted wild conspiracy theories related to vote rigging. Former TV presenter Kari Lake, who has been touted as a possible vice presidential pick by Trump in 2024, continues to claim that the Arizona secretary of state race she lost by 17,000 votes in 2022 was stolen. Lake has also boosted racist “birther” conspiracies about former president Barack Obama and has pushed for journalists and political rivals to be jailed for unspecified crimes.

In Chansley’s home district, a slate of candidates reflecting Arizona’s embrace of extremist ideologies have already declared interest in running for the seat left open by the retirement of US representative Debbie Lesko, a member of the far-right Republican Freedom Caucus in Congress who voted against certifying the 2020 election results.

Blake Masters, who ran for a US Senate seat in 2022 and lost, announced he would run for a seat in Arizona’s 8th district last month. During his Senate race, Masters was backed by money from techno-libertarian Peter Thiel, his former boss, as well as an endorsement from Trump, who told him to lean into claims of election fraud if he wanted to win the election. (Masters very much touted 2020 election denial conspiracies, but they apparently didn’t help him win.)

Masters, who published videos of him shooting guns as part of his 2022 campaign, will face a challenge for the GOP nomination from Abe Hamadeh. Hamadeh, a 2022 Republican candidate for Arizona attorney general, also lost his race in 2022 despite having Trump’s endorsement. Hamadeh was one of the loudest voices in Arizona falsely claiming that Trump had won the 2020 election, and he is still trying to have his own loss to attorney general Kris Mayes overturned.

Former US representative Trent Franks, Lesko’s predecessor, is also running again. Franks was forced to resign in 2017 after he offered female staffers millions of dollars to serve as surrogate mothers for him and his wife—and at least one aide was unsure whether Franks was requesting to impregnate her through sexual intercourse or in vitro fertilization.

Anthony Kern, an Arizona state senator who was also in Washington, DC, on January 6, and who has been accused of using campaign finances to fund his trip to the capital, has announced his candidacy for the congressional seat as well. Kern was captured on video entering a restricted area outside the Capitol, though there is no evidence he was violent or entered the Capitol itself, and he has not been charged for any crimes related to the riot.

Kern is, however, currently under investigation by the Arizona attorney general as one of 11 fake electors who signed documents in 2020 to claim that Trump had beaten President Joe Biden in Arizona, even though Biden actually won the state. Kern also took part in the sham hand-recount of ballots in Maricopa County in 2021.

Before becoming a lawmaker, Kern was fired from his position with the El Mirage Police Department for lying to his supervisor about repaying the cost of a tablet computer he had lost. He was placed on a list of Maricopa County law enforcement officials with a history of dishonesty or misconduct.

“The race in general is gonna be wild,” one independent researcher who tracks the far-right in Arizona under the moniker Arizona Right Watch tells WIRED. But, they add, they would still “take Chansley over Kern, who is totally corrupt and batshit.”

And even though the other candidates are possibly more connected politically, Chansley still thinks he has closer ties to voters in his home district.

“Several of the candidates running here in District 8 don’t even live in District 8. I’ve lived in District 8 for over 30 years,” he tells WIRED. “I’m largely doing it on my own. It’s just me and God, man.”

He’s currently working on a campaign website, and plans to begin knocking on doors to meet voters in the next couple of weeks. Chansley is also eager to take part in debates with other candidates. “That's where I think I'll shine,” Chansley says. “I'm ready to debate anyone and everyone that wants to try.”

When asked whether he would be attending a candidate forum being organized by a local community organization on Wednesday night, Chalsey says, “quite possibly.”

Chansley added that he doesn’t want any campaign donations, but says that if people want to support him, they can do so by buying merchandise on his website which includes T-shirts, mugs, and yoga leggings that feature him dressed in the notorious QAnon Shaman garb.

Despite having no experience, no money, no support, and no endorsements, Chansley is still optimistic about winning in 2024.

“I think my chances of winning are good, otherwise God wouldn't have asked me to run,” Chansley says.

[stalkedbytrains]

Untouched Horizons Timeline 2/-

The Formation of Zones and First Cold War

-1582

A few native earth plant species are introduced but not many

The new plan is to establish several outposts and break the island into regions to make it easier to tend

A House will formed

They will, as a unit, be given a territory to maintain for 2 years with one long break in the middle

then they have a year off for the Houses to reconvene and interbreed

They will also have time to do other House business before getting their next assignment

A House is ruled by one or several qiins, each representative is left to the House itself to decide

There will be a series of jdaginds to maintain and run the Hive, lots of day to day internal work

And there will be a large series of shrar to work the lands outside the Hive

For the next two years there will be lots of political maneuvering of qiins trying to band together or convince enough people that they have the willpower to form a Great House

Who will go with who, who is offering what, one qiin atop it all or several? Lots of things going on

-1581

The first election of an administrative house to do a 2 year rotation in the colony to oversee the city and everything (including the few remaining scouts)

Great Houses are formed and are recruiting under various qiins; 21 total

21 houses with an average of 580 people making it up

There are inter-House elections for representatives to stay within the Zlicchaser and essentially function as Senators

-1580

The first term out in the wilds is drawn, political favors are extended for seemingly more favorable positions and whatever

The first decision is to make the first term 4 years so that outposts can be built, infrastructure built, that kind of stuff

20 zones, not including Zlicchaser

-1576

The last four years has been the building of the outposts and connected waterways

The island’s ecosystem is doing much better, the animals they’ve found are starting to thrive in expected ways, nothing truly unexpected happening just yet

There is one major problem as everyone’s time is up at the same time so the entire population returns to the colony for their “shore leave” and it is a debauched party for several months and a large population spike

-1575

A new administration is election and the 2 year rotation is drastically changed

Great House: House of the High Sun (Ziiryaukste Gankt)

The House rotations are much more staggered, there is a lot system implemented

The work season/election cycle is now 30 months now: 24 on, 6 off, no more than 4 Houses off at the same time

2 slots are split at the beginning and end of the thing as it is seen as the worst ones

For the ecosystem, some scientists suggest that for an ideal set, they’d like 600 Great Houses but they are extremely underpopulated for it but that will change in time

There are complicated rules for making and splitting of Houses

There are even more complicated inter-House rules for the same thing

-1572

The first suggestion to extend term limits is denied

First petition to remain on land tries and fails to get a unanimous vote

An allied house of Gankt (High Sun) gets elected to the administrative position for the season: Chauigtsoond House (Plentiful Choond, a plant from Yatz that is known and prized for its flavorful purple berries)

-1569

Gankt (High Sun) is returned to the administrative seat, the flaw in the system is exposed

-1566

Chauigtsoond House gets the administrative seat once again

Outrage is had but there is no way to prove the election was rigged

-1563

The final act of Chauigtsoond House is to grant a request from Gankt (High Sun) to claim a zone for itself, which is of course the richest zone

The other houses are incensed

They reject the claim on the land and force Chauigtsoond House out of their positions

When the pushback happens, the allied Houses cannot stand against the willful neglect of the other 16 houses

All of this leads to a cold war

-1560

The cold war is between 16 houses and the 5 allied houses who have been trying to take power

An ally house is in the administrative house

The other houses refuse to let any business get done so they veto everything on purpose

Trade embargoes, the other houses are under no obligation to trade with them so they don’t, isolating the other 5 houses which wouldn’t be a bad thing except for

Attacks on the trade-ways between houses

Minor violence

Rivers are damned, supplies attacked and stolen

Somehow all out war is mostly avoided

-1558

The season comes to an end and the 16 houses demand a vote for the new administrative house which the 5 allied houses can’t not agree with

When a new system is in place the residency of Gankt (High Sun) is revoked, and the scandal is revealed

Gankt (High Sun) is forcibly disbanded

Their allied houses are deliberately placed within the lots to be as separate as possible so they cannot meet even during their off times

Rules are established as to which house can be administrative and for how long and for how many times in a set period

A circle pattern is established for rotating houses over zones and administrations

[warwickroyals]

you've mentioned places like great lakes and new westminster. are these states or provinces, or just general regions? how is sunderland divided administratively?

Yes, hello, these are provinces and Sunderland has ten of them! They look like this (roughly, it's a work in progress)

The ten provinces are:

Alexandria, Algonquin, Cheyenne, Danforth, Great Lakes, Iroquois, Lakota, Missoria, and New Westminster

Each province is represented by a provincial government and they are considered to have shared sovereignty with the federal government. Each province has a Governor-General, who represents the Crown aka Louis V. Each province has a certain amount of MPs (Members of Parliament) who sit in either the House of Commons (lower chamber) or the Senate (upper chamber). MPs represent the legislative interests of their provinces and municipalities at the federal level. There is a fixed number of twenty senators (two from each province), who are appointed by the King on the advice of his prime minister, while members of the House of Commons are elected directly in federal elections, with the number of MPs depending on the population of their province, the larger the province the more seats they have in the House of Commons.

In Sunderland, you don't vote for the prime minister directly, you vote for them through your MPs. So, if the potential prime minister (the party leader) belongs to the Liberal party, you vote for the Liberal MP representing your area, if that Liberal MP wins they have a seat in the House of Commons. If a majority of the MPs in the House are of a certain party (the main two being Liberals and Tory Conservatives), their party leader becomes Prime Minister with a majority government. If a party wins the most seats but fails to hold a majority, this is called a minority government and the ruling party has less absolute authority and will have to coalition-build with other parties in order to get things done. So, it's extremely important that the Prime Minister and his Ministers are supported by their MPs in the House of Commons, this is something Sunderland's current prime minister is struggling with. MPs can resign, retire, switch parties, or die on a whim, so the amount of power a government has can fluctuate.

The Senate is more of the wild-west as Louis is free to appoint to whoever he wishes for whatever reason he wants (on the advice of the prime minister, but he can ignore the advice). The general rule is that these people have to be of noteworthy public standing, but they don't have to be politicians. They can be activists, lawyers, civil servants, etc. If the King tries to appoint a friend or a family member, nothing but public outrage can stop him. So, naturally, Louis doesn't appoint friends or family and has grilled James and later Nicholas on this being something you should never do as King. Louis's Daddy James II didn't have the same restraint. . . Nor did King Nicholas (removing the leftists meant sacking the senate against them) . . . Or King George who fought tooth and nail to have his moronic son-in-law appointed to the Senate in 1898 . . . but it's not a corrupt system at all, I swear . . .

The Senate has the job of approving the potential laws (bills) passed to them by the House of Commons, in short: if they dislike it, they send it back or veto it, if they like it, they'll hand it over the Louis for royal assent. Believe it or not, the fact that there is an unelected body, that serves until the age of SIXTY-FIVE, picking and choosing what laws get greenlit has caused SCANDALS, with the protests happening in this post being triggered by the Senate rejecting an affordable housing bill forwarded by the Liberals in the House.

Until 1999, those appointed to the Senate were given a title of nobility, typically an Earldom or a Dukedom if The King thinks you're a really good boy. The families of Irene and Tatiana are descended from prominent Senators, this is where their family titles originated from. This tradition ended when the first woman was appointed to the Senate in 1999, since women can't inherit noble titles, Louis stopped the practice altogether, instead of . . .y'know, just getting Parliament to allow women the ability to hold noble titles suo jure. Louis can technically still hand out noble titles, but he informally agreed to stop granting titles to non-family members. People at the time viewed this as him becoming more egalitarian and progressive for the new millennia, but in reality, he was just keeping his crop of aristocrat ass-likers more exclusive. So, now your senators aren't literal dukes and earls . . . yay, progress?

Finally: The "commander-in-chief" of a province is called the premier. Think of him like a governor in the United States. These guys are elected through provincial elections and they form their own legislative bodies to handle provincial legislation (healthcare, education, etc.). They operate largely independently from the federal government and have historically resisted federal micro-management.

If you're familiar with American geography or history, you'll know that the provinces have Indigenous names (Cheyenne, Lakota, Missouria, Iroquois, Algonquin) and others are named after royalty (Alexandria and Louisia) and prominent figures/locations (New Westminster, Danforth) . . . the implications of these names say a lot about Sunderland's history.

Hopefully, I'll be able to update my map soon, hope you enjoyed the political lesson.

[bllsbailey]

GOP Clinches Houses Majority, Ups Seat Tally to 219

After Newsmax projected an official clinching of the House majority of at least 218 seats, Republicans have upped their total to 219 with the official victory declaration of Rep. Ken Calvert, R-Calif.

Calvert is a long-serving House GOP member in the deep-blue state of California.

There was a flip away from Republicans in the state as Rep. Mike Garcia, R-Calif., has officially lost his seat to Democrat George Whitesides.

That sets the latest House tally at 219 Republicans and 210 Democrats with six races remaining too close to call. Republicans lead in three of them.

Breakdown of the remaining races:

California (five seats): Districts 9, 13, 21, 45, and 47. Republicans lead in Districts 13 and 45.

Alaska District 1: Republican Nick Begich leads incumbent Rep. Mary Peltola, D-Alaska, in a ranked-choice voting state that would flip a seat to the GOP.

Rep. Juan Ciscomani, R-Ariz., held on to defeat Democrat challenger Kirsten Engel in Arizona's District 6, Newsmax is projecting, which clinched the 218th seat for Republicans, assuring the majority.

Democrats had been hoping to capture control of the House to blunt Republicans' grip on both the presidency and the Senate. In last week's election, Donald Trump recaptured the White House, while the GOP claimed the Senate majority 52-47 with one race (Pennsylvania) yet to be called by Newsmax.

Majority control is likely to smooth the way for enactment of the many elements of Trump's new administration, including plans for a large-scale deportation of illegal immigrants and tariffs on various foreign countries' products.

Trump is also expected to put forth a number of judicial appointments, which would likewise face a smoother road to passage under a GOP-controlled government. That is expected to include one or more Supreme Court justices.

The projection is a major victory for Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., who rose from relative obscurity to lead the House in both its legislative agenda and its push for Trump's reelection, according to The Hill.

Vulnerable Democrat incumbents like Susan Wild and Matt Cartwright of Pennsylvania were toppled, though the GOP did suffer some losses of its own. Three of its freshmen New York lawmakers, Reps. Anthony D'Esposito, Marc Molinaro, and Brandon Williams, lost reelection bids.

The final House tally is unclear, as some races in California remain to be called. The ultimate margin, The Hill said, could make a difference in how Johnson handles the House and how much he is able to achieve.

House and Senate Republicans have been working up a legislative plan for Trump's first 100 days under total GOP control, Johnson told Newsmax on Election Night.

"Those include extending the tax cuts passed in Trump's first term, boosting border wall funding, repealing climate initiatives, and promoting school choice," the Hill said.

Another issue is sure to be whether and how to continue support for Ukraine in its effort to repel a Russian invasion. Many in the GOP have raised questions over the continued allocation of resources to this foreign conflict.

Eric Mack ✉

Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.

© 2024 Newsmax. All rights reserved.

[livinglibertytoday]

Living Liberty Today with Charlie Earl

Winning the Lottery

Otto von Bismarck: “If you like laws and sausages, you should never watch either one being made.” If the late Otto was correct, then the 2024 campaign resembles making vegan bologna, Back in my radio days, I had a love-hate relationship with political advertising. I loved it because of the gross volume of income generated but hated it because by law I had to sell the ads at the ‘lowest unit rate.’ Those crafty career politicians passed a law requiring a benefit for themselves that typical advertisers couldn’t earn. Image that.

Now comes the time when half of the nation must assume a stiff upper lip and suffer the consequences of their friends’ and neighbors’ voting preferences. I suspect/fear that firm upper lips will be in short supply for several weeks. The rancor and vitriol surrounding this election cycle has probably guaranteed that there will not be a smooth transition. The nature of the various campaigns in our nation (including the big kahuna) provides a platform for charge and countercharge, suit and countersuit, and reaction and anti-reaction. Incendiary language and physical assault may capture the headlines (and our imaginations) in the coming weeks. The Bonfire of the Inanities has already commenced in Seattle. (Fret not, Pilgrims, they are merely roasting tasty Seattle coffee in outdoor venues…so I assume).

First, I hope that Trump has a plan for the next six weeks…something more than throw it against the wall and see what sticks. Although I am a strong advocate of accountability, I urge Trump to cut a deal with Biden: You pardon me, and I pardon you and Hunter. This tradeoff would minimize disruptions during the transition period and allow the new administration a clean slate to implement their objectives. Elon, Vivek, Dr. Ron, et. Al. should immediately begin identifying agencies, departments, bureaus, and commissions that are ripe for elimination or drastic downsizing, and strategies should be identified for implementation.

Although we ‘on hold’ as we wait to discover the makeup of the House and Senate, I believe that Trump/Vance will need a 20-vote margin in the House, and a four to five vote pad in the Senate to successfully enact its agenda. (I call this the Squish-Rino factor). Fasten your seat belt because it may be a wild ride. Whatever happens in the next six weeks or the next four years, I have no fear.

“…But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD."

Joshua 24:15b

[uncleasad]

Just lost an hour and a half of my life (which was essentially all of tonight’s writing time) because my dad forwarded me an email that was making wild and slanted/politically-biased claims about the referendums on this year’s ballot (which, ugh, I hate those every election, because no one ever does a good explainer, at least that I can find), and he wanted me to fact-check the claims.

Interestingly, the author of the email was opposed to all three measures because they were sponsored by Republicans (a fair reason to be skeptical, for sure). They were opposed to two measures because they reduced local (property tax) government revenues while giving protection/relief to individuals (which they also portrayed as residents of rich counties getting tax breaks and residents of poor counties having to pay more!), and they were opposed to the third because it made certain uncommon things more expensive for individuals (average number of cases per year can be counted on two hands). So…they’re against helping individuals in two cases, but for helping them in the other? (These arguments appear to have been mostly pasted from an “explainer” in a left-leaning publication, which was the least informative of all the explainers I read while researching the measures.)

The author neglected to mention that these measures had to pass the General Assembly by a ⅔ majority vote to make it on the ballot, and even with our current gerrymandered state of affairs, that means the measures required support of significant numbers of Democrats. At least two of the three measures passed the House unanimously (I can’t easily find the result for the third, and I’m not spending more time on this!), and those two passed the Senate 42-11 (80% of those voting, or 75% of the total number of seats) and nearly unanimously (the lone dissenter was a Republican); the third measure also passed the Senate unanimously. So these measures had massive bipartisan support.

By all means, help us understand these ballot measures, but, please, if you’re on the left, don’t make up crap and present poorly-researched representations of the facts. The other side is already doing more than their fair share of flooding the field with lies, misdirections, and half-truths!

I want my hour and a half (now two hours, thanks to my writing this rant sigh) back!

(And if anyone cares about my opinion: based on everything I could find, they seem like measures that fairly balance the needs/desires of the individual/taxpayer and those of the government(s), so I, like a vast majority of voters, will be supporting them. Unlike the vast majority, I at least have an inkling of what I’m supporting 😢)

[mechanical-cryptid]

I need to point out something wild with this bill. This bill is widely regarded as the most restrictive border control bill we've had in decades. This bill is rather pointedly one that all republicans would want out of a bill. It is incredibly nationalistic, it not only regulates (and restricts) funds to humanitarian efforts around the world, but it also closes the US/Mexico border as much as possible. But here's the wild thing: it is likely this bill won't pass in the house. While this bill has drawn some democrat votes (a prospect that will no doubt lose seats in the house and senate) it has LOST more republican votes. "How did that happen?" You may ask. While Mitch Mcconnell will tell you it's because republicans feel a short term closing of the border is not law and therefore not worth a vote, in a bizarre turn of events the republican party can put all blame on the annoying orange himself, Donald Trump.

See, while this bill would be huge for republicans across the board, and be a substantial victory for the party (which they haven't had since winning a thin house majority two years ago), MAGA Republicans, who at this point may as well be a third party, won't let it pass. See, a bill as restrictive as this, dare I say as nationalistic as this one, would be great with a republican president, since it would look like while they're in power, they get what they want. But Trump isn't in power, and worse yet Biden is. If it gets passed under Biden, there goes half of Texas' voters (likely untrue, but these are extremists we're talking about, so let's pretend for their sake). So now Leftists are calling for much needed changes to the bill the aid humanitarian efforts, and restrict funding to Israel, (a different vote that is being put up in the future) and the republicans are split because they can't have a win while under the democrats.

What does this mean for you? Well, even the liberal Media that supports any democrats choices are saying it's unlikely to pass, but that doesn't mean they're right. Call your congressman, be an active members of your community, and tell your reps that they should not support a bill that cuts support to humanitarian aid in places where we claim to be defending democracy. Be good, love each other.