The Republic has fallen.
In the final days of the Clone Wars, Chancellor Palpatine died under mysterious circumstances. With the Senate struggling to retain a sense of unity, it was the perfect time for the Separatists to strike. And strike they did...
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For the fourth time in half as many minutes, the plaintiff from House Bonaga was shouting – and loudly enough that every word the man spoke echoed down the corridor from the Great Hall with crystal clarity:
"This is an outrage! I demand to speak to Lord Noreino immediately!"
"With lungs like that, I don't envy the nurses who saw him through his early childhood," Ineas Dakharen muttered bluntly, and Lux fought back a smile. "Nor do I envy your task to mediate this dispute, Lord Bonteri."
Hearing his old servant and advisor address him by his true title was a balm for the soul – almost enough to make him forget where he was headed and why.
"I'm starting to wish I followed your advice and took those headache meds before I left after all. I– oh." Lux's brows lifted when he saw Dakharen's outstretched hand and the container of pills nestled in his leathery palm. With a smile and a nod to show his thanks, he took it and swallowed one, and then a second for good measure. "You really do think of everything, old friend. Thank you."
"Your mother was the same: always so focused on larger concerns that she paid little mind to the smaller ones. Until they had grown enough to draw her gaze, that is. In time I learned to anticipate her needs and meet them when she herself was too preoccupied. I have merely done the same for you."
Any other day, the wise older man's soothing talk of the past would've eased his mind; transported him to a place far from here, where things still made sense. But not now, so close to that day fate had set him so brutally on this path...
"Please don't talk about my mother," he said in a pitifully small voice. Some wicked corner of his conscience reminded him his father needed an heir fit to lead in his stead, not a sniveling child, but grief had sapped his strength from him.
Thankfully, Dakharen didn't comment on it, instead bowing his head in apology. "Oh, that's right... forgive me, my lord, I had forgotten what time of year it was. I suppose it's best I hold my tongue for the foreseeable future, when it comes to the business of Senators and plots and such things."
Lux managed a cool, stiff nod and picked up the pace. His self-control was slipping, and inner voices that sounded more and more like his father's were easily finding fresh insults to hurl his way on the subject. Still, he couldn't muster the willpower to speak again. He wouldn't have known what to say even if he'd had it.
When they reached the Great Hall, it was almost a relief. Finally Lux could turn his mind to the situation within, which was blissfully loud enough to block out any unwanted emotional background noise. He barely noticed the climb up to the elevated throne beside his father's empty one, nor remarked that the gilded metal and plush velvet were just a hair less constricting than an interrogation table.
Three people stood waiting before the thrones that were of interest to him today. The first, who was still yelling, was the balding, richly dressed Etrik Bonaga. A series of unfavorable matches in the hotheaded man's immediate ancestry had deprived him of most prospects beyond the financial, but from what Lux knew, that wealth was so great it more than made up for the lack of good breeding.
