Mud | Obikin

33.

The sunset strains Satine's shadow all along the dining hall floor. When she steps out of the light blade, she looks leaner than I remembered. Her eyes are rimmed with fatigue and her pale cleavage displays too defined collar-bones. This new, subtle frailty makes me want to tell her all is going to be okay, or perhaps just feed her Puff cake and Hoth chocolate.

"Duchess," I murmur, bowing my head to kiss her hand.

Satine holds my shoulders at arms distance, as pondering a kid's growth. What she sees troubles her. However, when I offer her my arm, her lips raise in a thin smile.

As long as we all hang around, carrying flutes of iced sparkling wine and discussing politics, it goes relatively well - which is something, given that the topics of Mandalore's neutrality and the Senate's radicalisation aren't soft ones, and so they are most of the interlocutors.
It's when we sit down and move to lighter subjects that I realise what I've got myself into.

"Burc'ya vaal burk'yc, bur'ya veman - hard times show us who our friends are," Satine starts from her place at the head of the table. "This wasn't the first time the Order had fought side by side with Mandalore, neither it was the first time a Jedi had saved my life. In behalf of my people and personally, I thank you for your loyalty and commitment."

The Jedi at the table nod and murmur random polite words.
We all want to get our minds away from what happened and are glad when Organa breaks the self-conscious silence.

"If I'm not wrong, the Duchess suggested that Jedi had saved her before..."

"Toward the end of Mandalore Civil War," explains Satine. "The Death Watch had become determined to take my life. They only failed because Master Jinn and his Padawan came to my aid. We spent a year on the run, and they saved me many, many times..."

"This means you've meet Obi-Wan before any of us," deduces Organa.

"It's true. We were just like Anakin and Padme... about their age, I mean." She faintly reddens. Probably, I'm the only one noticing it. "Master Jinn was an extraordinary man. Getting to know him influenced my approach to politics and life to a great extent."

Memories flooding back make us exchange a smile.

'Take a room already,' loudly thinks Anakin, gaining a poke in his ribs.

"What about twenty-or-so Padawan Kenobi?" He asks, wriggling away. He's sitting between Padme and me, of course, and looks perfectly content.

"Obi-Wan was - he will forgive me - a huge dork and an insufferable mir'sheb."

They all laugh and look at me.

"The Duchess is saying I was a smartass." I translate.

Satine gives an unusual girlish simper. "Glad to see your Mando'a is still good."

"I just kept in mind the good parts, ori'dush dala." I turn to the others. "As Satine put it, it seems she was a damsel in distress, desperate to be saved. I admit this is what I had been expecting too. However, when my Master and I arrived, we found out the hardest part of our mission would have been convincing the damsel to let us protect her... and keep up with her courage and determination. We lived hand-to-mouth for months, never sure what the next day would bring. If I ever had been the boy Satine describes, I wasn't anymore when I left. That year taught much to me as well - above all, to never underestimate a Mandalorian damsel."

Satine raises her glass. "To damsels and Jedi, so - and to all those who gave their lives for Mandalore."

"To Shaali Halerome," adds Padme. "May she recover soon."