Current mood:	accomplished
Entry tags:	ornamenti

Ornamenti: Part 11
shoiryu and I decided to show what was going on inside the ship as well, so just follow the paragraph breaks. Hopefully it's clear enough to understand. :/

Part 11: In which there is a duel between a Jedi and an apaHata, and the Handmaidens prove useful once again.


And then they were alone, and there was nothing but the heat and the wind and the suns shining brightly.
Naraka said, "I thank you." The words were simple and entirely sincere.

Obi-Wan bowed and turned on his lightsaber. It glowed furiously in the hot noon light. "Hold still."

The Hata did as he was told, closing his strange black eyes.

A swift, high-ozone buzzing moved up and down beside his jaw. "There. You can remove it now."

He reached up and lifted the collar off above his head, letting it drop into the sand at his side, and reached to his belt, withdrawing the hilt of a decently-sized vibro blade. With his other hand he ignited the laser shield on his right wrist; it was about a foot and a half in diameter, lightsaber proof.
"Whenever you are ready. I shall use all tools at my disposal. I expect that you will use yours."
And there was calm.

"Mm." Obi-Wan Kenobi fell slowly into an effortless defensive stance, feeling for all the years of wisdom Qui-Gon Jinn had imparted before his untimely demise. The memories brought reassurance instead of pain, serenity instead of indecision. The hum of his lightsaber melded with the hum of the sands across the dunes, the almost imperceptible light bouncing off millions of microscopic stone facets.
He could feel the warm weave of his robe against his skin, protecting but not cutting off the cut of the wind or the feel of the suns. Enough shielding for a Jedi.
There was serenity. And there was calm.

And then there was movement as Naraka sprang at him, fast, Jedi-fast, shield already raised to intercept a defensive lightsaber, the six inch vibroblade igniting and driving straight for painful, vital areas, stomach, kidneys, whatever could currently be reached. The Force, too, was with him, but only in the sense of anticipating attack- his power did not stretch beyond that.


Padme carried an unprotesting Loolee in her arms, never far from Sabe and the slumbering Suldai. Rabe and Eirtae seemed to have both Ruwee and Ficha well in hand- a quick medical check-up, a meal, and then some well-deserved rest was in order.
Possibly for Anakin too; the ordeal seemed to have drained him... Perhaps more than first glance betrayed. Padme frowned, noting the way he tried not to stagger when he walked.

Anticipation and guidance was with Obi-Wan. The Force enveloped him, ran through him, hummed in his lightsaber and his body, turning them into one complete being. He whirled and swept past Naraka's blows with amazing flexibility, waiting. Learning.
Anticipating.
Reacting.
Being.


Sabe shot a glance at Padme, and carried Suldai into the medbay, to wrap her in warm blankets and perhaps get some protein into her; the girl was weak physically, as well, and could use the added strength.
Anakin had secluded himself out of the way, allowing the handmaidens to get to their work- he had not sat down, as he'd said he'd needed to, but instead was leaning against the clean pale wall of the cruiser, forehead first, eyes closed, taking deep breaths as though trying to realign himself.

The Hata matched him- he was not a hunter of Jedi for nothing, was not a warrior who had lived so long and killed so many. He was graceful, a patient, unemotional fighter, as steady as any Master, and as they went on his movements became faster and more vicious, increasing in intensity.


Loolee shifted and wiggled in Padme's arms, eager to get down and walk by himself again. She let him, and he scampered after Sabe and Suldai into the medbay.
That left Padme alone in the hall. With the Padawan.
He didn't look well at all.
"...Anakin?"

Obi-Wan matched him blow for blow, absently comparing this fight to one he'd had long ago, before he'd had a Padawan. That enemy had been more difficult. More dire.
That enemy had taken more from the Jedi Order than this man, with all his Padawan braids and his stolen lightsabers, doubtless sold long ago onto the black market.
He glanced at the scar on Naraka's cheek and smiled.


Anakin said, with the quiet gravity of a patient man, "I'm all right." Another deep, even breath. "Are you?"

"You fight well," said the Hata, without pausing. "You do your Master very proud, Kenobi." A step in close, trying to pull his feet out from under him, to jam that blade through his stomach.


Quiet gravity was not Anakin's normal state, and Padme's soft tone communicated her concern. "Yes, I am. Whatever you did for Suldai helped her, too. Thank you."

Obi-Wan did not fall to the Hata's tactic. Instead he parried the vibroblade with an effortless force that nearly knocked it from Naraka's grasp. "I should hope so."


"Well I'm always happy to help the Queen," Anakin replied, evenly, with little inflection. "I had to do that for Obi-Wan once, on Illum, when we lost most of our ground troops and..." He paused, and frowned slightly. "...Or it was Ruavi, and the Rebel Alliance was making a scene of it... Or... something." One eye opened to peer at her quizzically, with great detachement. "...Didn't the nexu claw you?"

Another swift movement inwards, a feint, and then a jab for the left shoulder. "I would be honored to be struck down by such an opponent."

Yoinomyoujou: (Anakin jumps about four different timelines there.)


Padme gave him an even look. "I don't even know what a nexu is, Anakin." She took his arm gently, recognizing that lost look, the way the words were emerging from his mind. "You should lie down."

The shoulder moved just in time- Naraka caught little more than a few fibers of robe. "I appreciate that, Naraka." Obi-Wan twirled around in a subtle acrobatic spiral; this style was not meant to look impressive. It was meant to be effective.


"I'm okay, Padme, I promise," and the way he spoke her name was intimate, like a whispered secret, the way he grasped her arm in return and turned towards her with a closeness that was more than friendship. "You worry about me too much." His hip brushed hers, the movement natural enough to him, and he smiled at her, warm, knowing.

And this time the movement was too quick for the Hata to follow in full.
It did not strike him down, but it did knock the weapon from his arms, did send him to his knees in the burning sand, disarmed with only that shield for defense.
He stilled, and looked up at Obi-Wan.
"Victory is yours."


She frowned, a little overwhelmed by this change in behavior, nonplussed by the closeness.
However, the boy was in one of his trances; he didn't really know what he was doing. Whatever had helped Suldai had clearly left the teenager with less than his usual composure. "...You really ought to lie down, Anakin. Please."

"You still have your shield, Naraka."


Anakin only smiled, and lowered his head, face close to hers. His breath was warm, and even, and his eyes were on her, and then his lips were against hers softly, something momentary and almost chaste. It was swift as a single breath, and then he'd let her go and straightened up again, was moving past her a bit unsteadily.
"I," he announced, without turning around, and with that same eerie steadiness, "Am going to go and lie down."

Naraka smiled. "My shield is not a weapon. You have taken my weapon."


Padme Naberrie Amidala stared after his departing figure in complete horrified silence, not sure if she'd gone momentarily insane or if Anakin Skywalker had really done what he'd just did.
She put her fingers over her lips (too late) and leaned against the ship walls, thinking nervously that at least he'd gone to rest a little.
It was probably better than what she'd get.

"One can still fight with a shield." Obi-Wan Kenobi regarded his opponent impassively. "Or would you like your vibroblade back?"

Yoinomyoujou: (And Ani's going to go have a nap. *L* GOOD JOB, BOY)
AraiYasha: (*L* He wakes up and goes, "....wah? A.A")

In response, Naraka reached to his shoulder, and carefully untied one of the braids that dangled there, not too long, and not too short, the hair dark brown, threaded neatly with green. He bowed his head and held it out to Obi-Wan, a gesture of surrender.
"This belongs to you."

"I'm sorry, Naraka." And he was, oddly. "I cannot take that until you're dead."

There might have been humor in the Hata's voice. "You force me to fight dirty," he said, and tucked the braid through a loop in his belt, in plain sight. "You refuse to take your victory here?"

"Yes. I refuse." Obi-Wan smiled a little. "Killing an unarmed opponent is not the Jedi way. Retrieve your weapon."

Yoinomyoujou: (Oh, Ben. You should've killed him.)
Yoinomyoujou: (Anakin's going to be pissed if you get hurt.)
AraiYasha: (Yeah. He should have. But he wouldn't be Obi-Wan otherwise.)
AraiYasha: (He knows it wasn't the most strategic thing to do.)

Naraka's response was a sudden and unexpected surge of movement, so fast he was nearly a blur, pulling another vibroblade from out of nowhere and thrusting it so swiftly at Obi-Wan's midsection that the movement was almost impossible to track. One moment, he'd been on his knees, and now suddenly, he was there, with killing intent.

The lightsaber took Naraka's arm and the corner of his moving shoulder. Cauterized the wound instantly.
Even as blood from Obi-Wan's stomach dripped into the sand, he was whirling and striking once more.

And that was the end of Anisavya Naraka, or, at least, the end of him as a whole man. The pieces of him were still there, of course, but the separation of his head from his shoulders had effectively silenced his life. There was little blood in the sand from him, for the wounds were burned closed, but the smell was faintly acrid.
The calm returned once more.

Obi-Wan Kenobi finished the lightsaber form, holding the ending pose perhaps a little longer than was needed. Or perhaps the extra time was a homage, a parting grace to something unnamed.
He sent his lightsaber to sleep and holstered it, one hand absently pressed against the vibroblade wound. Then he knelt down and divested Naraka of the three Padawan braids still pinned to his chest. These went into a low pocket in his robes. The braid wrapped with green he rolled up carefully and placed in the empty pocket he kept over his heart.
Then, still dribbling blood through his fingers, the Jedi Knight opened the ramp and walked into the ship.

Whatever sleep, whatever trance Anakin had been sunk into, it was jarred from him by his Master's pain. He was up and out of the medbay swiftly, ignoring Sabe's exclaimation of surprise and alarm, and darting back down the hallway to meet Obi-Wan at the ramp. He said nothing aloud, immediately, only took his Master's free arm and looped it around his shoulders, offering support despite his own shaky knees.
Master, he said, and there was deep concern in his voice.

I am fine, Anakin. And there was a deep sense of accomplishment here that overpowered the pain. A sense of a vow fulfilled, an old promise kept, a precious thing retrieved. A few stitches will put me right.
Obi-Wan was happy.

Yoinomyoujou: ("A few stitches" Is not going to fix six inches worth of stab wound, Obi-Wan. *L* YOU DSdsdfgh dummy.)
AraiYasha: (*L* HE DOES NOT CARE.)

You're not fine. Anakin's hands pressed against the wound, trying to staunch the rapid flow of blood. Obi-Wan's joy meant little in the face of his potential loss. You're going to bleed out-
He cut off the though swiftly and reached without connection for anyone nearby who was awake enough to hear.
Help me.

The closest person to the door was one who hadn't expected upon seeing Anakin again so soon, as the last time she'd talked with him... had left her at a bit of a loss. But Padme was never one to ignore a distress call for the sake of a silly shock. When she saw the blood, she was glad to have come so quickly.
"Oh for the love of-" Padme took her place on the opposite side of Obi-Wan; she was closer to his height than Anakin was now, oddly enough, so it was easier for her to wrap his arm around her shoulder. "Master Kenobi, what happened out there?"
"A duel." Obi-Wan seemed intent on walking well enough to not have to be dragged into the medbay.
"Oh really? Did you win?" Rabe frowned darkly at the Jedi, catching her breath in a moment and moving to help Padme on her side. "You Jedi are crazy."

Sabe had peered in around the medbay door, eyebrows raised quizzically, but when she spotted the situation she was all business immediately. "Bring him in here and put him on the table," she said. "I'll see what I can do."
Anakin was remarkably calm. "You have medical training?" he asked, his hands still staunching the bloodflow, preventing his teacher from bleeding to death.
She didn't even glance at him. "More than the others do."

"And I can't do much of anything to help him like this," muttered a rough voice from a nearby bed in the corner, one bandaged hand tapping impatiently upon more bandages around chest and ribs.
"Hush, Corde. That bacta tank didn't do you any good."
The handmaiden in the corner blew a very effective raspberry at the younger one as Rabe hefted Obi-Wan onto the table with Padme's help, nevertheless offering some very sound medical advice despite the earlier childish expression. "Be a little more careful with the left side. It may not be visibly wounded, but the organs can bruise."
"We'll keep that in mind."
"I'm guessing it was a vibroblade?"
Obi-Wan made a slight "nngh" sound. "...Your assumption is correct, madam."
"Ah. Then be extra careful. Sonic damage in the soft tissues isn't as rare as we'd like to think with those."

Anakin, clearly trying very hard not to hover, stepped back, but his mind remained pressed close to his teacher's, fairly buzzing with worry.
Sabe was perfectly calm as she prepped a sedative. "You made short work of the Jedi Killer, didn't you," she said to Obi-Wan, without looking at him, eyes moving to Corde instead. "I'm going to knock him out so I can stitch- ten c of the fobrizone, I think."

The shadowy patient approved. "That should do- best to get it in before the shock beats you to it." She thought for a moment, then added, "Do a scan before you stitch. There's always a chance something below-surface was affected."

Sabe nodded agreement, and put the injection tube against Obi-Wan's neck, depressing it without another word to him, though her hand brushed a speck of dirt from his forehead immediately afterwards, gently, and giving him a momentary smile, so brief it almost didn't exist.
"Padme, if you could hand me the scanner..."
In the background Anakin's face was very carefully composed. Too carefully.

The former Queen did so, just as comfortable in the role of nurse as she was in her political one.
Rabe moved out of the way; medical procedures were not her particular forte. She waited beside Anakin, off-handed impassivity the very fiber of her being. "Your master will be fine, Skywalker. The man's too tough to die from a scratch like that."

"Stomach wounds are always worse than they look," Anakin muttered, putting a hand to his own stomach without thought. He still looked shaky and exhausted, but there would be no sleeping now, not unless he was forced. There was little that could force a Jedi to sleep when he didn't want to, save chemicals or the wise interference of a more powerful member of their Order.
Sabe went to work with her customary curt swiftness; her hands were careful, experienced, as she scanned, and cleaned the wound, and set about starting the stitches, issuing orders to women who had been her superiors as though this was quite commonplace, without even a second thought as to whether or not they would obey.

"Mm. That they can be."
It didn't take a Jedi to figure out that Rabe spoke from experience.
Eirtae had joined the assisting nurses in the meantime, and each woman (or at least the ones that were mobile; Corde had propped herself carefully so that she had a decent a view of the goings-on and could offer a second opinion at a moment's notice) busily obeyed Sabe's orders as promptly as she gave them, sometimes even sooner. More than once, Padme's hand hovered absently over a particular drawer before Sabe could ask for materials from that certain place.
The handmaiden medbay routine was obviously practiced well.

The whole operation took less than an hour and a half, with teamwork and careful experience; within the space of that time Sabe was gently applying a bacta pad to the slumbering Jedi's stomach and pulling the sheet back up over his bare chest.
"Thank you, Sisters," she murmured, in a rare moment of quiet reverance, and then said in a voice closer to her normal tone, "We'll let him sleep for a while, and see how he does... we'll know then if he's going to be all right."
"I'm staying with him," Anakin declared. Sabe eyed him.
"You should sleep."
The boy's eyes found Padme momentarily, and there was no knowledge there of what had previously gone between them. "I'll sleep later." He moved forward, to rest a hand on Obi-Wan's shoulder.

The lack of memory in his face confused her; Padme shrugged it off and just... chalked the whole thing up to exhaustion.
Rabe raised an eyebrow at Sabe, considering the boy's determined devotion to his Master. "...If you do not begin sleeping more often than you have of late, you will not be able to function."

"I'll be okay," Anakin said, perfectly, maddeningly stubborn. He was not going to be moved by persuasion, not now. "He needs me." Whether that was true or not, it was true that Anakin, at least, felt it was so.
Sabe shrugged, and made a gesture behind Anakin's back that said that Rabe could go for sedating the boy if she felt so inclined.

She did.
And Rabe, when she felt like it, could be as fast as, if not faster than, a Jedi.

He was fast, too, but his hand closed around her wrist a second too late. He fixed her with a dizzy glare, uttering a string of curses in Huttese that trailed off into nothingness as his knees buckled and his eyes rolled back.
Sabe caught him under the arms. She actually grinned. "Heavy for a kid," she declared, though she didn't seem to be having much trouble with him. "That was fast."

"Eh." Rabe grinned and shook her wrist free. "Strong hands too."
Eirtae giggled. "What are we going to do with two comatose Jedi?"
"Mollycoddle them?" The bandaged handmaiden sounded amused in her corner.
"Hee! THAT'S an idea!"

"Better treatment than they'd be getting somewhere else," Sabe agreed brightly, shifting Anakin into the next bed over. Upon a moment's though she began to untangle his Padawan braid from behind his ear, touching his face in an absently soothing motion as he stirred and mumbled. "The galaxy isn't kind to Jedi, or have you not noticed?"

"Oh, we've noticed." Rabe dropped the syringe into a biohazard bag and keyed it in for sterilization and recycling.
Padme sighed and brought out new bedclothes. "The job is difficult enough without hazards like the Hata everywhere."
"Hmph! Good riddance to that one, I say!" Eirtae fluffed some pillows in a huff.
"We should probably cremate the remains before it mummifies in the desert."
"...Rabe."

"If you want to go out there and deal with it, you can." Sabe straightened up, smoothing Anakin's braid against the pillow. "I'm certainly not going to. Let him rot."

"Mm. I'll admit to a certain satisfaction in seeing him go up in smoke." Rabe started out, voice wafting back in through the door. "Besides, Tatooine's carrion birds do not smell any more pleasant than what they eat."

"You don't have to go out there and sniff them, Rabe!" Sabe called, but she was smiling, touching Padme's shoulder lightly. "And you. Are you feeling better? The children are safe, thanks to our boy Skywalker, here."

She touched her friend's hand and leaned into it gratefully. "Yes." Padme sighed, feeling a full wash of relief after too many days of quietly submerged frantic worry. Still... "I hope the others are safe, wherever they are."
This she doubted, considering Suldai's strange condition.
A split lip, neglect in a slave hostel, and her previous weakness didn't explain the strange illness the little girl had described to the other children before finally falling unconscious.

Sabe's guard was down now that the eyes of the Jedi weren't on them; she wrapped Padme in a tight hug. "Don't fret," she said in the other girl's ear. "Everyone is going to be fine. We've made it this far. We'll go even further. As far as it takes."

Padme replied with a tight squeeze and a small sound that resembled, more than anything else, a whimper. This woman was her best friend, after all- the woman she'd grown up with, become half of as a neccessity for the political security of their shared home, watched heal in the middle of the night, been watched by in the middle of the night as she healed. The woman who'd become half of her. Sabe knew best of all how deeply the children's loss had affected the former Queen. She knew why.
And this was why Padme could always be safe with her.
No matter what.
No need for pretenses here.

Sabe kissed her cheek, quiet acknowledgment of that bond, and said gently, "Maybe you should sleep for a little while, too."
After all, they weren't going anywhere just yet. There was still work to be done on this planet, still a need to remain, but for now, it seemed, they all needed rest.

Padme nodded, breathing in Sabe's smell. She never had words to place it or another scent to compare it to, but it was pleasant and comforting, always a welcome constant. "I think that's a wonderful idea."
She stood reluctantly and moved to Corde. "How are you?"
"Could be better, Your Highness." The woman was amused; the battle wounds didn't have any bearing on her good humor. "You going to sleep in the children's room? They'll be glad to have you."
Padme leaned down and kissed her gently on an unbandaged part of the cheek, smiling happily. "It's good to see you again, Corde."
"Likewise."
Sabe and Eirtae also got cheek kisses as Padme left the room.

Yoinomyoujou: (...Padme and Sabe have totally done it, YOU CAN'T TELL ME THEY HAVEN'T

Sabe: *this is not the time*)
AraiYasha: (*giggle* I don't know if they have or haven't!

Padme: ...... *yes, this is not the time*)
AraiYasha: (But I can tell you frankly: If Anakin wasn't Padme's first time, Sabe DEFINITELY was.)


Next up in Part 12: More Tatooine exploration! Because we just can't get enough of that funny little backwater desert planet.