Times of the Past

In Two Days' Time...

     Satine was up bright and early the next morning, and it quickly became clear that her previous night's vow was going to be quite the challenge, as she soon realized that her focus for the next few days was going to be on her duties as Duchess.

     A few women helped her look presentable for the morning's meeting, and then she was immediately escorted to a dining hall to eat breakfast, but she was too preoccupied with notes for the meeting that she hardly touched the wide array of food set out before her. She ended up asking a palace worker to give the food away to anyone who wanted it, and then she headed off to the palace meeting room.

     As a guard led Satine down the hall, she briefly wondered what Obi-Wan would be doing that day, and whether Kheva was still asleep. She had let her sister rest in her room for the day, but she wondered what her sister had been up to lately to stay occupied.

     The meeting room was all set up when she arrived, and the palace officials were already waiting to greet her.

     As soon as she sat down, a technician turned on some equipment to broadcast the meeting to the capital officials as well.

     Obi-Wan sighed as he woke up that morning and looked out the wide viewing window in the room he had been provided. It was near the ground floor of the palace, but he could sense that somewhere in the many floors above him, Satine was already awake and active. 

     He had known yesterday that time together with her in these few days would be hard to come by, and he wished he could do something to change that. However, he knew that it was imperative for Satine to utilize every opportunity at the moment to regain control over her position as Duchess of Mandalore. 

     He knew, even as he longed to go see her that morning, that he would never want to stand in the way of her position. She was really good at her job, and he would support her from the sidelines for as long as he could.

     He just hoped she wouldn't be passing from his life so soon.

     As he pulled on his clean robes for the day, he resolved to head upstairs to meet with some guards he had spoken to the day before. He was curious to hear if all the ships had made a successful return from Concordia, and he supposed he could further discuss security measures that were currently in place for Her Highness.

     Satine had hoped that morning's meeting would be less stressful than the recent ones that had been for strategic planning back in Keldabe, but she exited the room feeling frazzled and unsatisfied. 

     The officials were pushing for her to take her public stand in two days' time, which they said should give the citizens enough time to gather to hear her speak and provide the guards, workers, and officials with enough time to prepare to return to work properly and take all necessary precautions. 

     Though she trusted her people, she questioned them straightaway on whether they would actually be ready in two days. They assured her that they were more than ready for her to make her return, and that everything else would fall into place only after she had gone through with addressing the people of Mandalore directly.

     She wanted to argue more with them on this, and she did on a few other subjects, but in the end, she was still forced to accept their proposal to publicly return in two days.

     She tried to tell herself that she wasn't just trying to buy more time to spend with a certain Jedi padawan, but in the end, she couldn't lie to herself either.

     She knew that meant Obi-Wan would likely be leaving after the next two days. 

     Two days would never be enough time.