#which would put it at the end of the year around solstice - new year fete

[dapurinthos]

lucasfilm story group i have some questions for you regarding timelines and the tenacity of a person who has been dealing with the debate surrounding precision dating of the 'minoan' eruption for a decade and a half.

- yoda, issue 10: the cave

yes, it's the cave on dagobah, infamous for fucking with whoever enters it. but! yoda didn't know yaddle was dead until this point. regarding the veracity of the cave's visions: yoda's previous encounter with the cave showed him the fall of the jedi temple; luke's vision regarding vader was what would have happened if he had killed vader in anger—he would fall to the dark side, become sidious's apprentice, not the literal expression of himself in vader's suit but truth nonetheless; in the aphra comics, madelin sun also visits the cave and is also given truths.

and not just 'from a certain point of view'. the narrative pushes these parts of the visions as objective truths. the additional bits (yoda drowning in the skeletal remains of the victims of order 66, vader as the expression of the empire as he's the face of it to luke) are the baggage you bring with you.

so, after that little detour into what counts as truth and what counts as inference, the timeline, prior to the release the living force should be:

32BBY, c. PM: Valorum dispatches Sifo-Dyas and Silman to Oba Diah.

PM - 1W*: Trade Federation blockades Naboo. [QP]**

PM/0: Invasion begins; Obi-Wan& Qui-Gon on Naboo by twilight that evening [NA]***.

PM+1: Arrival in Theed the next day; flee Naboo; hyperspace jump to Tatooine takes a little over an hour****; arrive in Tatooine at midday [NA]; reach Mos Espa before mid-afternoon [NA]; meet Anakin & Shmi.

PM+2: Boonta Eve Classic; leave for Coruscant in afternoon (~3 hour trip****). The implication is that a night is passed while travelling to Coruscant, shown by night on Naboo and Anakin having trouble sleeping on the ship [NA].

PM+3: Arrival on Coruscant (day); Senate shenanigans; Dooku deletes Kamino from Jedi Archives, talks with Qui-Gon (assuming concurrent with Senate shenanigans, mid-afternoon if the light is from a window and not a glow panel); High Council tests Anakin (sunset - twilight) departure for Naboo.

PM+4: Chancery election; Battle of Naboo; Qui-Gon killed by Maul.

PM+6?: Dooku kills Yaddle.*****

PM+7: Qui-Gon's funeral, evening [NA].

PM+8: Parade in Theed.

PM+????: Sifo-Dyas shot down on Oba Diah moon.

* pm: phantom menace; +/- indicates the time, in days, in relation to the beginning of the film, unless otherwise noted (w for week). ** [QP]: information gained from queen's peril novel. *** [NA]: information gained from novel adaptation. **** how do i know it was 3 hours? i did the assigned homework. ***** this one is a bit squiffy, as we don't know exactly which day the council departed for naboo. the novelization says qui-gon's funeral was three days after the battle, and there hasn't been anything stated elsewhere to change this. it's the next day, at the very least, as the battle of naboo took up the whole previous day, but it could also be the same day as qui-gon's funeral, depending on when the council departed.

Meanwhile, the other sources:

Star Wars Timelines: he totes died 32BBY, after the Invasion of Naboo. The Living Force: timeline what timeline lol?

this is not helped by the reasoning behind the Coruscant reckoning system, canon's new calendar, being based on 'vibes' until they decided to do actual dates for Andor. because the date for the 0 point of the B/ABY calendar is now about 127 days into the Coruscant reckoning year because they ~vibed~ Leia's arrest warrant going out/the Battle of Scarif as happening on 7977.331.3.

I miss the old calendar. It was nice, and simple, and had lovely intercalary holidays. none of these decimals, none of these 'yeah it's totes a 365-day calendar like ours. no leap years. no we're not telling you about months. no, ignore the previous thing we said was canon, it's definitely not 10 months of 7 weeks of 5 days, 3 fete weeks, 3 extra holidays, adding up to 368 days. i have spent too many hours of my life trying to figure this out.

[sabraeal]

(don’t go) making something out of nothing, Part 2

Prologue | i. the first woman he ever loved

Yet another piece of @infinitelystrangemachinex‘s run away birthday fic; many thanks to @bubblesthemonsterartist​ and @claudeng80​ for beta’ing this chapter!

ii. the first to make his heart race

When all his mistakes are immortalized for posterity by one of those nosy little court historians, Zakura would like the record to show: the pharmacist isn’t his type.

She’s too tall for one; in her boots she stares him straight in the mouth. Her own quirks with that smug smile of hers, like it’s funny how unimpressive he isn’t. Too old too; at least five years on him, and the kind of person to lord it over a man all his days. Her hair frizzes, blonde kinks that he finds in his mouth, despite keeping his distance, and her face, nice as it is, tends more towards handsome than pretty. Strong; that’s what Her Majesty would say, if she were here.

And she’s got opinions to match.

“You’re heading up to Wirant, Highness?” she asks, glancing over her notes. His Prickishness is buttoning up his shirt, the pale porcelain of his doll-face uncharacteristically pink.

His stomach is clenched too, trying to make ridges where there’s only smooth boy-belly. By the cant of this woman’s mouth, she knows it.

“Yes. To visit my mother.” His Highness doesn’t grimace, but boy, does it look like he wishes he could. “For solstice. It’s an...event up there.”

“Oh, I know.” This time her big mouth spreads into a grin. Friendly, but not friendly. “I trained up there.”

The prince’s eyebrows raise, but only a seemly amount.The little bastard already knows. Clever. “At Lilias?”

Gazeld settles back into her hips, arms folding right under her chest. Doesn’t do her any favors, either. “Good guess.”

“It’s the finest institution in the country,” the kid says, with the kind of confidence belong to a much older man much-- one who could actually grow a beard. “With your skills, it would only make sense that you were an alumna of its hallowed halls.”

So this is how the other half flirts. Standards must be lower when the man could buy and sell countries with a blink. “I reckon you have places to be Your Highness. Documents to sign, plots to foil, that sort of thing.”

The prince turns to him, face utterly blank. With a year on the job, he knows it for the scowl it is. “Sir Zakura, I’m sure that--”

“No, no, don’t stay on my account.” Gazeld waves a hand, too amused. “I was only going to ask-- have room in your carriage for one more?”

“Has it been long since you’ve been north?” The prince crosses his legs, and gods, it’s like sharing a cab with a spider with how much of it he manages to take up. The kid’s barely seventeen.

“Who, me?” Zakura presses a hand to his jacket, buttons scraping at his palm. “Why, I’ve hardly even left--”

“I meant--” His Highness’s mouth sets thin as a blade beneath his nose-- “Mistress Gazeld.”

She darts a glance at him, like they’re somehow in on this joke together. “A handful of years, give or take. I keep up with a few friends.”

“I see.”

His Highness has an array of masks, each one with the proper expression for an empty-headed prince to wear in every circumstance, but now-- now his face twitches, as if he’s not quite sure which one he means to make. Zakura smothers a grin. Watching this jackass struggle to be human is a rare pleasure in this shithole of an assignment.

He settles, ultimately, on an inquisitive smile. “Is that who you are visiting?”

It doesn’t take a chessmaster to fill in what he won’t ask: for this solstice? And it certainly doesn’t take one to hear the thin thread of jealousy wound ‘round his words like a spindle, as if a woman Gazeld’s age would waste a strings-free kiss on a boy hardly old enough to find his ass with both hands, let alone his prick.

It’s almost enough to make Zakura pity him. Or at least, it would be if the kid wasn’t in the position to force the issue, should the mood strike him.

“Mm.” Gazeld watches him with interest-- not the kind a woman has for a man, but what a scholar has for a book unread. “Them, and your mother as well. Thought I might see if I can’t help with her castle allergy.”

Every inch of His Highness stiffens, and-- and Zakura’s seen all of his thirteen fake smiles, every single one of his twenty-seven princely masks but this, this studiously blank face is new. He doesn’t like it, not one bit.

“I see,” the prince says, like he’s talking around a mouth of glass. “Intriguing.”

It’s only his second solstice, but it’s already head and shoulders better than the first.

Zakura had heard that Wirant put out a good party-- not much else to do up here in the ass end of nowhere but throw an endless parade of soirees when the occasion called for it, really-- but he hasn’t seen it. Not with the country in the throes of mourning, and a queen with no use for laughter.

But this year; oh, this year-- there was no moratorium on merriment.

“You’re late,” grunts one of Arleon’s guards, a gruff little bulldog of a man. “Maybe I shouldn’t let you in.”

Zakura sighs, the guard at his back shifting, uncertain. A new recruit then, if he doesn’t know this old gem. “I’m a knight, Jirou. I arrive fashionably late.”

He wouldn’t have, if the royal prick hadn’t sent him out to do busywork; two weeks here, and today of all days is the one where the posts must be inspected. Not that the prince had deigned to come along, oh no-- he’d been snug here at the castle, primping, while he froze his tits off with the ugly sons of bitches Arleon sent out into the hinterlands.

Jirou grunts, the closest he comes to laugh without a few drinks in him, and the rookie eases. “Nothin’ about you that’s fashionable.”

He smooths a hand over the glittering buttons of his coat. “I’ll have you know, this is the very latest out of Wistal.”

“Hah.” The man leans back, taking him in. “You can put silk on a pig, but it don’t make it a princess. Sir.”

Zakura grins. “With that attitude, you’ll never make it pass Sargent.”

“Fine by me.”

Zakura could believe it; there are some men that are meant to be captains, to be leaders of men, but some-- some are born to sit just to the left of power, wryly reminding them of when they weren’t too big for their britches. Jirou’s one of them.

“Anything I should know going in there?” He rolls his shoulders, trying to get the mantle of knighthood to sit as easily on him as it does to the smug pricks born to it.

Jirou blinks. “Like what, sir?”

“Any trouble? People who have a habit of having a little too much and causing a ruckus?” He lets his mouth stretch into a leer. “Any pretty girls who might need a kiss come midnight?”

The guardsman scowls. “You’ve never had trouble finding any of those.”

Zakura’s not sure he’d be saying that if he knew who had been his partner last year. He grins anyway; he’s got a reputation to keep, after all. “Well, I’m short on time tonight.”

Jirou’s mouth twitches. “Better hurry up, then.”

He casts a worried glance into the hall. “There’s a lot of people.”

“It’s an auspicious year, sir.” Jirou’s grin says he’s enjoying this far too much. “Not one to miss.”

He blinks, brows raising as the man escorts him into the ballroom. “Why’s that?”

The guard tilts his chin toward a window. “Full moon. Happens once every twenty years, or summat. Some say it’s a blessing on the prince’s reign to come.”

Zakura hums. “Is that what you think, Jirou?”

“Hah. Me, sir?” He shrugs in the way men do when they don’t agree but like sleeping in their bed. Rumor had it he’d been married earlier this year. “I don’t know about all that. Work around too many of them scholars, you know? On their word, the heavens run like clockwork, and that’s good enough for me.”

Zakura claps him on the back. “Good man. Glad to see someone can keep their head about them.”

He moves past him, toward the glittering press beyond the archway, but--

“There’s another thing, sir.”

He cranes his chin just over his shoulder, and there it is again, that self-satisfied shine to Jirou’s eyes. “About the moon. They say whoever you kiss on a full solstice moon, you’ll kiss every one after.”

A grimace tugs at his mouth, stretching it thin. “I’ll keep my lips to myself then.”

Zakura means to keep that promise, he really does-- he may not put any stock in the sort of folktales they spread up here, closed in by the cold and the mountains, but the last thing he needs is to kiss a girl that does. He’s no prize catch in a court that boasts marquis and dukes among them, but here, where lords scrabble to hold onto counties and baronies, any man with a title is good enough. And if there is one thing he’s not looking for, it’s a wife. Especially a northern one.

He makes it two steps.

“Sir Zakura.” A clutch of pretty young debutantes crowd him, fluttering fans and eyelashes. “We’ve been waiting for you.”

Now there’s a question for the scholars: what if he’s kissing more than one girl at midnight? He’s got only a few minutes, after all, and if this whole thing is as fatefully binding as Jirou warned him, well, it’d be prudent to hedge his bets--

“Oh!” One of them turns, gaze slipping over his shoulder. “Is that the prince?”

The whole flock of them twists around to look, fans flapping faster. Zakura grits his teeth, and yeah, there the little prick is, strolling into this humble fete without a care in the world, Arleon’s youngest trailing behind him. He should have known; stories might talk of oysters or ambrosia, but there was no more potent aphrodisiac than a title. And oh, here was this pretty boy with the most arousing one.

Forgotten now that there is better quarry, Zakura slips back into the shadows. He’s used to this, watching that slippery bastard of a prince have everything handed to him on a platter, only to say he doesn’t like the taste. Even now his eyes are roving over the room, never resting, for all the world seeming like he’s searching--

Until he stops, short enough that the lords trailing in his wake nearly trip over him, his gaze fixed to the other end of the room. Zakura follows it, right down into the warren of drunken cardsharps play games with rules far too arcane for a simple man like him, and--

Ah, there she is. The pharmacist. He should have known.

She’s the only lady here tonight that’s not dressed to the nines, hoping to catch a convenient kiss. Instead, she’s wrapped up in Lilias blues & whites, the only formal wear most of those scholars own. His gaze drops further, and by every god, old and new, she’s wearing trousers beneath her tunic and cloak.

He’s got to bite his cheek looking at her, else he’ll laugh himself sick. This His Prickishness could have all the prettiest, glittering cunts in the world, but this is the one he wants to sink himself in.

Or at least, that’s what any normal, red-blooded man would be after. This boy, though-- he stands there, jaw the tiniest bit soft and hands clenched at his side, and stills.

Ah, his father should have trained him better. A soldier never hesitates.

Zakura pushes off the wall he’s decorating, rolling toward her in a loose-hipped swagger. “Mistress Gazeld.”

Her eyes dart to him, then over his shoulder, and when they return it’s with a smile on her lips. “Of course. Sir Zakura. To what do I owe this dubious pleasure?”

There’s a thousand pretty nothings that sprout from his mouth, but this woman isn’t a girl in her first season, ready to be wooed by pretty words. So he settles for the truth. “I didn’t think I’d see you here. Weren’t you supposed to be with those scholars you like so much?”

She hums, amused. It’s...an intriguing sound. Or at least it would be, if she couldn’t look him dead in the eye as she made it. “I was. But I had an appointment with Her Majesty. She insisted I stay.”

Zakura huffs out a laugh, leaning on the mantle beside her. “You don’t strike me as the sort who takes commands.”

“I don’t. She asked nicely.” Teeth flash behind her lips. “And I heard they imported scallops for some of the hors d’oeuvres.”

“How mercenary of you.” He lets his mouth widen into a grin. “I approve.”

“Oh,” she coos, mouth twitching at the corners. “Just what I’ve always wanted: a man’s approval.”

Ah, perhaps that was not his best thrust. He leans back the barest bit, and gathers himself for the next engagement. “I trust Her Majesty is well?”

“As well as she looks.” Gazeld’s eyes soften as she speaks. Zakura smothers a smile-- the best way into a healer’s good graces is always through her patients.

“And her...unique ailment?” It’s been years, but Castle allergy is still too ridiculous to say in an adult conversation where he plans on kissing at the end of it. “Anything to be done about that?”

Something in her expression changes-- closes, really; like a village toward a stranger after dark. “I’ve done what I can about the physical symptoms,” she says after a long moment, voice pitched low. “But I can’t do anything about...”

Her lips, thinner than he’s used to-- hell, she’s older than he’s used to too-- press together, a scar across her face as obvious as his own. Her eyes dart up to his, searching, and gods above, he doesn’t know what she finds there to make her say, “There’s nothing I can do for guilt.”

Zakura blinks. Guilt? What could--?

“That didn’t heal well,” she says suddenly, and he hardly knows what she means until she reaches out, brushing out over his nose. “I told you to take care of it.”

He stares down at her-- or across, really, but no one’s keeping count-- right into those strange eyes of her, nearly Wisteria blue in some lights and an intense violet in others--

And remembers thinking the same thing as he laid on his back, delirious with pain and not a little alcohol, as the pharmacist painstakingly stitched his skin back together.

“Fuck.” It’s all a little much-- the guilt, the suspicion, the memories-- and, when she opens her mouth to give him another dose--

The bells ring midnight.

Well, he had come here for a reason.

It should have been a joke. The “ha-ha” kind, where he lays one on her long enough for her to push away. Maybe even slap him if she needs to save face; scholars don’t kiss soldiers, after all. But no harm done; just a solstice kiss between two people who don’t belong here.

Instead, her fingers curl into the velvet of his cloak, hooking like talons around the brass of its pins. She tugs, sending him stumbling forward, hands hovering around her waist with the sort of wariness he shows mutts frothing at the mouth.

An odd thing to think, with hers covering his like this, tongue prying his lips open, and--

And, fuck him if this isn’t the kiss he meant to give. Not that he’s complaining.

Cheers kick up behind him, voices raised to meet the new day, and Zakura takes that as his cue to step back, to breathe.

He catches his hand only a moment before it touches his lips, sending it to lean along the mantle.

“Fair Solstice,” he manages, grin not quite fitting on his lips.

“Fair Solstice,” she agrees, mouth curling. “I have to admit, you did an admirable job, considering.”

Considering? Zakura frowns. Her gaze darts pointedly over his shoulder, and ah yes, there is His Highness, glowering at his back.

“But next time--” she leans in, mischief sparking in the mystery of her eyes-- “leave me out of your children’s games.”

“Ch-children?” Heat flares up the back of his neck. “I’ll have you know, I’m twenty--”

“Of course, of course.” She waves him off with a laugh. “But I’m sure you two can find a more obliging girl to squabble over.”

He doesn’t like the way the queen smiles at him over the rim of her cup, the dawn breaking behind her. “Dare I ask what you’ve done with my son?”

“He’s in his rooms,” Zakura replies, stilted. “Didn’t want to come down.”

Don’t ask why, he doesn’t say. There’s no point when Her Majesty’s already got that look in her eye; the one that says she might not have been there, but all the right people were.

“I see,” she hums, letting her cup settle back on its saucer. “Haki is quite a demanding dance partner, I hear.”

“Seemed a little young to be there tonight.” He scratches at his scar, nose aching in the morning chill. “She can’t be more than what? Thirteen?”

“Fourteen. Not out until next year, of course, but Arleon thought he might make an exception, since her dearest friend would be there tonight.” Her Majesty raises a brow. “Are you really going to hope I don’t know exactly what happened?”

“Ah--”

“Should I congratulate you on such a fine catch?” she asks, arch. “I know there were quite a few young men at Lilias hoping they’d catch such a magical moment with Mistress Garak tonight. After all--”

“It didn’t mean anything.” His hands fly up to ward off her well-wishes. “Just a bit of fun.”

“Oh, I knew exactly what it is, sir.” He chin tilts just so, the thin light of morning washing over her face. “I wish you wouldn’t make enemies of each other, when you would do so much better as allies.”

Zakura barks out a laugh; his scar pulls just enough to sting. “What does a prince get from a man like me? There’s any number of your sort who could do the job.”

“And all of them would stick a knife in his back for a handhold to the top.” Those eyes fall on him, deep and fathomless as the night sky fading above. “You two are more similar than you’d like to admit.”

“Is that so, Your Majesty?” Each word leaves his mouth on a whip’s crack. “A boy loses his father, and now we’re supposed to be--?”

“No.” Her mouth twitches; it’s the only warning he has before she replies, so mild, “Because you’re both stubborn fools.”

Well, there’s not much to say to that one, now is there.

“My son has been left a...complex legacy.” Her fingers smooth across the table’s linen. “There is no other man I would trust more to help him navigate it.”

Zakura’s never been a man to swallow down his words, not for thieves and not for kings, but when he opens his mouth to laugh, to scoff at what complex legacy the world’s richest boy could inherit--

He does. He takes one quick glance at Her Majesty’s face, and what’s there, what’s left behind from these two long years--

I’ve done what I can about the physical symptoms, but there’s nothing I can do for guilt--

Some deaths leave their own legacy on every one they leave behind.

“Well,” he coughs, squinting into the dawn, “how can I say no when the kissing’s so good.”

Her Majesty’s laugh bubbles from her, a force of nature, like water rushing through a stream. “I was under the impression that your kissing days are behind you. At least, the ones that don’t belong to Garak Gazeld.”

He snorts, turning toward the door as a footman enters, preparing to announce His Highness. “We’ll see about that.”