#corruptedforce

PADMÉ AMIDALA in Attack of the Clones - feat. Her Wedding Dress

Starter for @corruptedforce

Since his return from the outer rim, Anakin behaved strangely.

It wasn't his USUAL strangeness, either. No. Sabé was used to that, even fond of that. This was different: Something was wrong.

Another night where she woke up due to his side of the bed being cold. It'd barely been a week —give or take a few hours, because she didn't feel like actually checking a clock— since he'd returned and as the days went by, it became clear to Sabé that he wasn't doing well. He tried to hide it, of course; most likely because he didn't want to worry her. But she had gotten quite good at reading him and she could see it in his eyes, in the way his dimples didn't quite show anymore whenever he smiled. There was something on his mind.

A bit laboriously because of the sleep that clung to her mind and due to her pregnant belly getting in the way, Sabé stood from the bed.

"Anakin," she called as she stepped out, looking for him and finding him, as she had two nights now– not in a row, but still enough times for her to start sensing a pattern: standing in front of one of the windows, looking out. "What time is it?"

From the look of it, it was still dark outside. It was still late enough that the birds, whose chirping she'd grown to dread in the mornings where they could afford to stay in bed later than usual, hadn't woken up. And yet here they both were: awake for reasons still unknown to Sabé. But she could sort of guess, and the hypothesis her mind provided her with as she stepped closer to him wasn't at all a comforting one.

After he had gone missing for so long, she'd promised to never let him get lost again, and she intended to keep that promise.

"You can talk to me, you know. I can tell something's bothering you."

Starter for @corruptedforce

Sabé still couldn't believe she let Skywalker convince her of this.

He might have the eyes and hair his father used to have, decades ago. But Sabé would have testified, without any doubt, that Luke Skywalker had inherited all of his mother's stubbornness when it came to believing that anyone could become a better version of themselves. She hadn't understood that belief when it was Padme's, and she didn't understand it any better now that it was Padme's son's. But as it turned out, "He threw me into the sea and left me to drown." made for a flaky excuse to avoid someone when the person BEGGING her to consider giving Vader– Anakin, a chance, was the very same boy who had lost a hand to the very man he was vouching for. He knew what sort of damage his father could cause and yet, here he was, speaking on his behalf.

She just couldn't say no.

So, she agreed to be flown by Skywalker to where he was keeping his father. Apparently, and despite everything, not as a prisoner. Sabé didn't ask questions, no matter how much what little Luke had told her about the events that led to the rebellion housing the once Commander of the Imperial Army, and right hand of the Emperor, poked at her curiosity. She'd already left it clear that if things didn't go well, she expected a ride back to where Luke found her. That was all the conversation she deemed necessary.

Sabé also insisted to meet him ALONE.

And that's exactly what she did. She followed Luke's instructions. Straight down the hall, follow the signs, can't miss it. And sure enough, there was Vader, working on some starfighter.

"You're not planning to escape, are you?" she spoke up. "Skywalker would be upset."

Gift for @corruptedforce

There was nobody in the galaxy who Sabé would have trusted to make clothes specifically for her child other than Yané, and even then, he had to admit she'd completely underestimated her fellow former handmaiden's skills. Not only had she handled Marek with the utmost patience and kindness despite him being a professional wiggler at 6 months of age —which Sabé had already expected because she knew how much Yané cared about children—, but Yané had also managed to make an exact replica of Anakin's robes from only pictures and footage that had already been up on the holonet.

Seeing Marek wearing them was absolutely adorable, and he seemed quite happy with them. Whether it be because he knew what this day meant or not, or maybe because he knew his father would be coming over, he was all smiles.

The adorable baby-sized Jedi robes weren't the only gift Sabé had prepared for Anakin. After all, those were more for Marek than doe him. But they were his favorite and she'd already taken more pictures of their boy wearing them than she could count. When Anakin arrived, using his own passcode to come in, Sabé intercepted him at the door, a smile on her face.

"You're wearing your robes, good," she hummed, stepping out of the way just to reveal the sight of Marek in his own little outfit. "Now you two match."

Upon seeing his father, the boy squealed, smiled a one-toothed smile, and reached out with both hands as he once again began to wiggle, wanting to be picked up. Sabé still didn't know how she felt about the idea of Marek ever becoming a Jedi, but he looked adorable in Jedi robes.

"Happy Father's day," she said. "His outfit is only half of your gift. But it's too big to bring in here, so I left it at the hangar. I wanted to give you something that you could make use of too, and I remembered that engine you told me you've been trying to find... I have some connections, and I managed to find one in prime condition."

Starter for @corruptedforce

3944 years, trapped...

Almost four millennia spent in Dreypa's Oubliette, surrounded by NOTHING. An endless darkness. Forgotten by everyone, never to know if Carrick had even so much as tried to find her help, if he'd just ran off the moment he was rid of her, lived the rest of his days as a cowardly rat while she ROTTED in that casket. Her connection with the force severed from the rest of the galaxy, leaving her connected to no one but her torturer, her PARASITE, Muur. And oh, what pleasure he drove from fulfilling his role. Not a day had gone by within the confines of the casket where she wasn't made acutely aware of exactly how long she'd been there for. Hours become days, days become months, months become centuries. In a —very ironic— way, the battle of wits with Muur was the one thing that kept her from slipping into madness.

And then she'd finally been released, greeted by no healers, no masters. Just HIM.

She hadn't been thinking clearly. So focused on the relief of freedom from the casket and the comforting presence of someone other than Muur, she'd just fallen into a desperate embrace. Perhaps, if Vader'd shoved her off, the memory of his arms around her and the strange apparatus he wore on his chest whirring softly as she pressed her cheek to it wouldn't still haunt her almost as insistently as Muur did. But he hadn't, he didn't push her away. In fact, she was the one who pulled back.

Things had gotten much more complicated after that.

There was no place for Jedi in this galaxy anymore. The dark side reigned over almost every corner. ALMOST. Some derelict moon in the outer rim became her hideout, a new type of prison.

3944 years imprisoned in a Sith's torture box. Now, another five years imprisoned in some barren, lonely moon, seeking nothing but solitude. And yet, the Empire still comes after her. Still looks to hurt her.

Celeste had no way of knowing that the group of imperial troopers that landed on her moon was merely a scouting mission. A group of men who were either the least fortunate or luckiest people in the galaxy for stumbling upon her hideout without intending to– if she had to pick, she'd say they were quite unfortunate. She took no prisoners. The talisman controlled the rakghoul plague, and she controlled the talisman– but it longed to spread its disease, longed to feed in the despair of those infected, and who was she to deny it such cravings when the victims had aimed blasters at her?

Given how many Jedi there are out there, one would think there would be even a single book, log or holo warning people about the differences between a normal pregnancy and a force sensitive pregnancy. But Sabé had searched every site in the holonet that she could think of, and she'd found nothing.

Bearing a force sencitive's child was no joke. Truth be told, she isn't sure if the cause of this was the force sensitivity itself, or the fact that it was the child of Anakin Skywalker she was carrying. But regardless of what the cause was, it was exhausting, physically and mentally taxing as any pregnancy, with the extra con that she was all too aware of EVERYTHING around her. But it wasn't her first rodeo.

Although, sometimes, it felt like it.

For a child who'd been begging and bargaining for a sibling since before his parents got together officially, Marek sure had become clingy since she announced her pregnancy. No matter how much she tried to ease his worries, Marek lingered. Sabé loves her son more than anything else in the whole galaxy, but a woman can only be followed so closely by a boy who had long since gotten over the clingy phase before her patience started to run thin. Not even Kenobi could speak sense into him.

Something told her Anakin was in on it.

One thing was for sure, Anakin wasn't much better. He just so happened to have responsibilities outside of their home, so he couldn't be there at all times. That's what made her suspect he was in on Marek's sudden decision to follow her around everywhere whenever she wasn't resting in bed.

And speaking of the devil...

She heard the front door open and the telltale beeping from Artoo. Then, Marek's footsteps heading to greet his father.

Sabé got up, one hand on her stomach and the other on her lower back, taking a deep breath to fight off the ache. She headed for the front door, footsteps as quiet and calculated as when she was the Queen's Shadow because being seven months pregnant didn't change the fact that she was still trained to be stealthy. Said training had once kept the queen of Naboo alive. Now, it allowed her to hear something that confirmed her theory.

"Mom was out of bed for most of the day today," Marek tattled on her. "I told her she has to rest, but she said she doesn't like what the kitchen droid cooks. So she got up to cook and then she cleaned, and then she said she didn't want to be in bed."

"I have not been watching the news." poor Marek almost jumped out of his skin when his mother spoke. "Is it now illegal to move around in my own home?"