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Some nights she wakes with her fingers curled around an invisible blaster. She often, not-quite thinks and not-quite remembers, her first– the one her father gave her. She knows its small grip like she knows the grooves in her soul. On the stone throne of her office, she places a small pillow at the small of her back, to account for its absence.
She wakes at night though, fingers clenched around her weapon; she wakes up from reality, and still her dream does not go away. She knows her hand, in her sleep, in her waking hours, and she fears its truth. Blood does not belong in a baptistry.
His name, Obi-Wan. There are many things marked on her soul, his name most of all. There are good things– and there are great. Obi-Wan was not great in the manner of giants; many days she despaired that they were not great as field mice are either. So to see his face, after so long, is a wretched turn of fate. To see, and be forced to look at him– at his armor, the way he places his feet, and see what he has become– what she made him to be; maybe even what he always was, is a heartbreaking pain. She is well accustomed to them by now.
She tries not to speak, but she is a politician. Worse, she is Mando, and the fire of life has never abandoned her. The rage of her passion sours her every endeavor, and if surely she did have a friend, once, she does not now.
Her fingers curl around a blaster. The saboteur. She knows its grip. The center of mass, the recoil. She knows where the safety is. She knows how to say ‘no.’ She knows herself, she knows who to hate, who to give that poison gift.
She knows he is dead before he hits the ground. That nobody can survive a bolt to the face at such close range. She knows her hand isn’t any more red than it was before.
“Thank you for your assistance, General Kenobi. Please seize Merrik’s quarters and confiscate their belongings at your earliest convenience. I will coordinate with my team, and then I think I will retire.”
He always had such sad eyes, even now– but she cannot spend much energy assessing them at the moment. He doesn’t say a word, just gives her a brisk soldier’s nod, and escorts her to her room.
“I will assess any complications with the droids, check on the engine, and check back with your team before we make any definitive communication.” The perfect posture of his face slips. “I am sorry, Satine.”
She closes her eyes against the sting of tears and shakes her head away from him. Listens to his retreat.
—
Her bed is soaked. She tries to sleep in the corner of her windowless room; fails. The blaster from months ago had found its way back into her possession– framed from Almec; a gift, it sits on her vanity.
Her stomach growls. She walked all over Keldabe– she knows it as well as anyone– as well as Almec does, but she has never asked of anyone a plight she could not stomach of herself. Neutrality was a blight upon her system– maybe as much as the violence she outlawed. These days, she is second guessing herself left, right, and center, but she is smarter than to tell it to anyone.
For all their violent ways– Mandalorians had never starved before. The galaxy is always willing to feed the dangerous. Now, the people of Mandalore are deprived, in spite, or perhaps because, of their central location– never mind historic precedents. The Hydian Way is one of the most traversed hyperspace lanes in the galaxy– connecting the North-East Outer Rim to the Core accounts for 15% of the galactic rGDP. Now that the Republic and the Confederacy are feuding over it– neither of them are inclined to allow shipments to Mandalore.
So she cannot sleep, and neither can Keldabe eat. Sundari had a larger population in a smaller area– a thoroughly established infrastructure, and the only Aurek Level hospital system on the planet. Lord Tung Treatment Assoc was a galactic name in many circles– fully xeno-certified with comprehensive trauma and med surg units, as well as an attached school of epidemiology; to many in the outer rim, Mandalore was more than its warfare. Her ego liked to think that they were helpers. Healers. And like many things in her life– it was Obi-Wan who talked her into the Immediate Conflict-Mitigation Directive.
Helping refugees was one thing that both sides could overlook, but after the orbital station entered into a contract with the Republic to provide aid to wounded soldiers– that was when the situation became complicated.
As the war dragged on, she could tell that she was losing her touch. First with the Council of Cowards, as she liked to call them, the small federation of neutral planets who cared for no one– but cared less for either side. Then with her embassy on the eastern half of the planet– the half she didn’t own. Then the blockade– Keldabe, Almec breaking from her.
She didn’t believe in democracy. People were selfish, violent, petty creatures who, for all the lofty actions they purported– wanted to know what was right and what was wrong. But in all her years as Mandalore’s Prime Administrator and autocrat, in all the years since the Clan Wars and all the reforms she pushed for, she was never on shakier footing than she was now.
She had denied herself constantly, for years– ever since she left her skin in a ditch on the road somewhere on Concordia years and years ago. Now with her hunger pains, she did not deny herself now.
“Obi. I am sorry, I do not know the hour where you are… I wanted to hear your voice. I know your absence.”
She fell back on her bed, but it wasn’t more than 15 seconds before her comm rang.
“Satine.”
“Obi.”
“I’m pleased to hear from you, even in the young hours of the morning. The Sage Counselor T’re Colaptman said, "the truth cannot be spoken under the sun.” His smile only exacerbated the rings under his eyes. “How are you?”
“Are they, well. I am tired.. but I expect not in the way you are. I do not know if you do see the news.”
“Yes, I have kept myself updated. Nothing seems to be going to plan– victories do not feel like victories, some days defeats feel cleaner. The strength of my men keeps me going– I suspect that it is the strength I show them that keeps them going as well. Anakin would speak to me of Boolean loops whenever he brought home a new droid, I am wondering when my men and I– well. I suspect that our programming will fail, and I hope that we might be able to pick up the pieces, after.” She couldn’t see the wrinkles in his forehead over the holo, but she couldn’t miss his expressive eyebrows. “How are you, Duchess?”
She smiled softly at him. “When you say that word, in your heart you say Alor. The eastern continent has ever held my epithet to be Te’Laandur, but lately my people are hurting. Keldabe is hurting. Now, when Almec says Duchess he says aruetii, I can hear it behind their teeth. And blame him I cannot blame. His city is starving. The child of him, too.”
Slyly, she says; “Pre never called me Duchess. I suppose I enjoyed his honesty too much– so much that I never considered the things he did not say. Now he is a traitor. Maybe you were right– all those years ago. Maybe I was right. But as much as I loved Almec, I feared his ideology. The feudal democracy of the system ruined us– and Almec believed in it devoutly. For his love of peace was a love of people– and he sees no fault in themself or in others. ‘For the people!’ he would toast me. ‘For the people!’ his make-believe parliament would yell after they adjourned.”
He was tired, but so attentive. There was something delicate in her chest– like a flame or a pretty leaf. But it was enduring, and would survive the fiercest of gales. There was so much potential in it, and like all things about herself, she feared it.
“My Master once told me to look out at a forest. And when I had, he would ask me– ‘tell me which of the trees aren’t beautiful? And I would say, ‘None, Master.’ Then he would nod authoritatively and ask me, ‘and which trees are perfect?’ And again I would say, ‘None, Master.’ So therefore, he said ‘if ever there was a perfect tree, it would not be beautiful.’ Some things I cannot remember about him– not this. I dream of that moment often… I know you in my heart, Satine. You are a good woman– a beautiful woman, and so, you are not perfect.”
That small thing in her chest became very big, and she had no doubt that Obi-Wan Kenobi was great in the way of stars and saints. He was more than anything in her life, and she despaired at her selfishness. For she was selfish. She stayed up all night contenting herself with his voice. And then she was beneath the sun once more.
—
She met the Diviner only once. She was sleeping in her cell, and as she woke from a nightmare, he stood silently at her door. He was red with black tattoos; he had fae golden eyes. He was wearing beskar on his legs, with a light robe-like shirt belted around his waist not unlike something Obi might wear.
She had no patience for intimidation. She was Mando, for better or worse. “Well? Let’s have it.”
“What ever makes you think I want to talk to you?” She wasn’t expecting such a strong core-ward accent from the Zabrak, though anyone could tell you that the warrior wasn’t straight off of Iridonia. Regardless, she didn’t deign to respond.
“I am baiting a trap. But I wonder– they found a knife in your boot. Why did you not use it?”
“That was for me, cur! Me! And you took it!” She was on her feet in an instant, fists clenched and yelling. She immediately regretted it. Te’Laandur, Te’Laandur, echoed in her ears.
“So you refuse to spill blood, except your own. I find that to be… contemptible.”
She guffawed. “I imagine you find most everything contemptible.”
Silence then. Agreement. “It isn’t as if I am scared of you. The horrible things you could do– I have done them all. And so they haunt me, even now.”
He seemed less aloof now, more focused. “You do not know what horrible is, what it means. You were born to wealth and power– and you never abandoned it. Do not speak to me of your virtues even as you languish in arrogance and hypocrisy."
She laughed. “The horrible of you is not the horrible of me, slave! I know what you are, I see your scars– there are millions just as you are, fools who are victims; they love their hate, as they love their lowliness, and knowing that there is no more defeat ahead, for you are already defeated! You live in your own hell, don’t you? Just as I do.”
He said nothing– she couldn’t see his hands, he held them clasped behind his back.
“I am haunted by violence. I know you are haunted by peace.”
Still, he was silent– until he resolved himself to hate her. She could see it behind his eyes, when he decided.
“I will kill you soon.” The Diviner walked away.