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The young blond girl groaned loudly. She turned her head to the side, catching sight of the large anti-grav clock floating above her bedside table. Its distinct numbers stared back, and in her sleep-confused mind, they looked like a shocked face.
Rolling onto her left side, she cleared her throat and yelled, "Suta! What are you doing?"
"It's time to go! Come on, we'll miss him!"
"Huh?" Kairiku, already alert, hit a button on the wall to allow her friend in. "It's only 8:18, and I got in late last night from my meeting with Master Yoda."
The brunette quirked an eyebrow and shot a questioning look across the room. "Oh, really...?" she teased.
Kairiku reached for the nearest pillow and launched it at ChibiSuta, hitting her square in the face. "You're impossible!" A grin quickly melted her frigid expression as the standing girl tossed the pillow back. "Anyway, what were you saying about missing him?"
"He only eats for a little while, and we've never seen him stay past 9:15."
"Who's 'we'?"
"Uhhhh....." ChibiSuta stalled, and Kairiku guessed it was Audra. The boyfriended pair had been trying to hook their friend up for several weeks, and they thought that they'd finally found a match. "It doesn't matter. What matters is that you meet him!"
"Doesn't he eat lunch or something? Couldn't we go then?"
"He eats with his master. Come on, get your lazy tail out of bed!" The odangoed girl latched onto her friend's arm and pulled until she finally sat up.
"All right, all right! I'll go see what all your fuss is about. But," she added, rising from the bed, "no promises."
Half an hour later, the pair were walking quietly along the corridor of the Jedi Temple, whispering and giggling.
"Gods, Kairi-chan, you're worse than an enslaved Twi'lek," ChibiSuta snickered. Although both girls had dressed nicely for their "chance" meeting with the blonde's potential boyfriend, Kairiku was especially primped, her hair wound into a simple but elegant knot, revealing her bare shoulders. The skirt of her long slinky black halter dress skimmed the floor as her favorite knee-high boots tapped the metal flooring below them.
Kairiku looked shocked. "Wh - what?" She shot a quizzical glance at the brunette. "You said he was a real possibility, so I dressed for the occasion." She paused, her hands floating unconsciously to her hair. "You think it's too much?" In one swift movement, she pulled out the large aqua-jewel-encrusted pin, and her hair cascaded down, slipping easily over her shoulders to hang straight around her face. "Is that better?"
"I still think you're being an exhibitionist." ChibiSuta's hands brushed over her slim green top and pants, and she winked at her counterpart. "Well, we're here. Do your thing."
The doors before them retracted to reveal a bustling café where Jedi masters and apprentices of all races ate their morning meals. Kairiku looked about at the various creatures lounging around, and not for the first time, she had to prevent her jaw from dropping. Meanwhile, ChibiSuta scanned the masses of Jedi as much as with her eyes as with the Force, searching for her target. Upon finding him, she leaned over and pointed to a small blond boy sitting painfully alone. As the two girls approached, the boy looked up, and his piercing blue-gray eyes stared straight into Kairiku's heart as she nearly jumped out of her skin.
By the Force, she thought almost incoherently, Suta's setting me up with Anakin Skywalker.
"Kairi-chan... Kairi-chan... wake up..." A familiar female voice drifted dream-like through the older girl's brain.
She felt a warm hand rest on her shoulder. "She's unconscious," came a garbled voice. "I'll heal her with the Force."
Kairiku willed open her eyes to see Anakin kneeling beside her, his intoxicating eyes half-shut as he channeled the Force into the laying girl. Opposite him was ChibiSuta, who gave her now-conscious friend an exaggerated wink. Suddenly Anakin's eyes fluttered open and were greeted by the other blonde's warm smile. "Thanks," she said. Becoming aware of her skirt gathered around her thighs, she raised herself onto her elbows but returned to the ground when a wave of nausea swept over her, accompanied by dark spots in her vision.
"Yes," Anakin said soothingly. "Don't get up yet. We called for the healers, and they'll be here shortly. Just relax."
From her convenient vantage point, Kairiku studied the boy's face. I can see the three years since The Phantom Menace, she thought. Her eyes floated slowly along his jawline, its softness already hardening into the straight line of adolescence; pausing for a moment on his lips, where a vaguely illicit thought drifted through her mind; up along his still-adorable button nose, to those eyes... those eyes of warm stone almost dripping with some sort of Force-induced existential angst... Kairiku longed to delve into those eyes, to see through them into the soul of the boy she had only dreamt of meeting, whose joys and pains and crises she knew she could comprehend... As she gazed into those pond-like eyes, she suddenly realized that he was gazing back into hers, and a soft male voice spoke into her mind. I can hear you.
Kairiku smiled her answer. I know.
Having been given a clean bill of health by the healers who came to her in the café, Kairiku asked Anakin if he would like company for what remained of his meal. At his thrilled agreement, the two girls sat with him in a tiny booth, nibbling at a platter of miniature Ithorian fruit tarts as he consumed a breakfast fit for an oversized Wookiee.
"So," he started between bites, "I never learned your names." He paused for another mouthful. "Well, no, that's not true. You're Suta, and you're Kairi-chan. We've never been introduced, but I know your names through the Force."
Kairiku wasn't sure whether it was her physical or Force attraction to the boy that kept her cheeks flushed red, but she tried to ignore it. "And you are..." she returned out of habit.
Anakin shot her a look of mock annoyance. "You know who I am. No one here doesn't." He sighed. "To my classmates, I'm the irritating one who does better than them. To the older students, I'm the upstart who's as good as them at half their size. To Master Obi-Wan, I'm his all-important first padawan. And to the Council, I'm the Chosen One." He set down his fork. "I'm famous."
The girls' eyebrows raised in unison. "Wherever we go," the blonde began, "we have to travel incognito. If even one person recognizes us, someone has to erase the memory with the Force. Remember the big damage-control crew that went to Naboo after our run-in with Mistique? It was so that we remain a rumor. If people know where we are, the Sailor Sith will find out and trap us. So we spend our lives covering our tracks."
Anakin's eyes conveyed his genuine interest and concern as he reluctantly folded his napkin. "I... I should get going. Obi-Wan probably wouldn't mind if I were late to saber practice for a good reason like this, but I don't want to push it."
Under the table, ChibiSuta's foot collided with the other's shin as she prompted the blonde to follow through. "Anakin?" Kairiku asked with a hint of nervousness. "Would you like to... um... get together sometime? One of my friends can make an amazing ruby bliel."
The boy's eyes lit up in interest. "I... I'd love to," he replied. "Here's my comlink ID." He scribbled a series of numbers onto a napkin. "And... how'd you know I like ruby bliels?"
Kairiku's eyes sparkled with mischief. "Word of mouth," she answered.
Once the blond boy had left the café, ChibiSuta squealed with excitement. "Finally!" she exclaimed. "Finally you like one of my candidates!"
Feigning indifference, Kairiku shrugged. "He's okay," she replied.
"Okay?!" blasted her friend. "I bring you Anakin Skywalker, you say, 'Okay'?!"
The blonde's seriousness broke as a grin cracked her facade. "By the Force, Suta, you're amazing! Do you realize you just set me up with the Chosen One? The one who will bring balance to the Force?"
The odangoed brunette giggled. "I was gonna say... if you really were knocking him, that was gonna get personal. He's family - he's my great grandpa!"
Now it was Kairiku's turn to giggle. "And not every person has the opportunity to set up their best friend with an ancestor!" She paused as the pair grew serious. "On Earth, I was convinced that Anakin Skywalker was my alter ego in the Star Wars universe. I mean, now I know that's not true - I'm my own alter ego - but... I understood his suffering completely. Every nuance... I mean... discovering that you're more talented than your teachers could ever dream of being... having your friends neglect and misunderstand you... that's the story of my life. And now I have the opportunity to date him... Gods, Suta, you're incredible."
3:55.
Kairiku flipped back onto her stomach, sighing loudly. Aside from her encounter with Anakin, the day had been a boring one for her. At breakfast with the senshi, she had asked Nom if she knew how to make ruby bliels. The black-haired Dathomirian replied that although she knew little of Outer Rim refreshments, she would attempt one if Kairiku found a recipe. The blonde had done just that, sending the message to Nom's infopad in her chamber. Then the older senshi had left for a conference with the Council, and the younger girls had gone to classes, from which Kairiku had been exempted when the lessonmasters learned of her extraordinary intelligence. Now, she was alone with her thoughts.
The excitement of the morning had long ago worn off, replaced with a pensiveness she hadn't felt since her days on Earth. She was still thrilled by the thought of dating Anakin, but her knowledge of the future was haunting her. In Episode I, Anakin had met and become enamoured with Amidala; by Episode IV, he had married her, fathered two children, maybe even killed her. In the intervening thirty-two years... who knew? But what the young blonde did know nagged at her constantly. Even if she began a relationship with Anakin, it wouldn't work out; sometime in the next eleven years, he would marry a queen. And what if it did work - she would put a gaping hole in galactic history. She could never do that; the consequences were mind-boggling, even for her. A tear slid slowly down her cheek. How could she begin a relationship that was doomed to fail?
Wiping her eyes, Kairiku lazily reached for her bedside table, retrieving an exquisite handmade notebook and stylus. Despite the luxuries of Star Wars technology, the Earth-born girl still preferred the comfort of pen and paper to any infopad or computer, and what she began to write was astounding. An inky stream of consciousness poured from her pen, at once poetry, prose, and painting, putting into words thoughts and fears she'd never even known she had. Page after petal-soft page filled with the intricate loops and dots of her native English, relieving the young girl in her ancient fashion. In the places where her saline tears blurred the letters, she carefully rewrote them, planning to look back at her thoughts in a day, a week, a year. Concluding her musings, she penned one final question for the future.
What if I am the reason Anakin turns?
When ChibiSuta arrived back at the chambers she shared with her best friend, she found a note on her infopad telling her that the blonde had gone to meet with Nom about the ruby bliels. She sighed heavily as she poured herself a glass of Cerean nectar and relaxed onto the soft Nubian sofa. Finding no holovids to distract her from a tiresome day of mathematics classes, the brunette reached over and lifted a handsome but mysterious journal from an end table, leafing through it and recognizing her friend's handwriting as she sipped her drink. Although Kairiku was her best friend, some of the sentiments she expressed in the notebook took ChibiSuta entirely by surprise. Despite her marginal understanding of English, which the genius child was trying to teach her friend, the odangoed girl learned of the other's reluctance to become involved with Anakin. But, ChibiSuta noted to herself, I need to straighten her out on some of this.
Nom watched the blonde's reaction carefully. She sipped slowly, then stopped, a pensive expression crossing her face. Nom could see that she was really testing the drink, examining it, and as Kairiku broke into joyous laughter, the black-haired woman knew she'd done well.
"Nom, this is fantastic!" cried the ecstatic girl. "I've never has a ruby bliel this good, and I've been trying them everywhere we've gone since I arrived! You could sell these!"
"It is alright, then." The Dathomirian witch was somewhat surprised, since she had substituted synthetics, renowned for their mediocrity, for the ingredients she couldn't find. "Do you think that Anakin will agree?"
"He'd have to be crazy not to!" She finished her cup and waited while Nom refilled it. "Here." She pushed the drink back towards its maker. "You try."
The green tips of Nom's hair flew out in a circle as she shook her head. "No, thank you. I have no taste for Tatooine foods. They are too strong for my tongue."
"All right, have it your way," replied Kairiku as she drained her second glass. "So I'm not sure when I'll need them, because I haven't spoken with Anakin yet." The blonde's hesitation was apparent.
"What is it?" The Force-sensitive woman felt her companion's concern and sat down beside her at the table.
"Well.... it's not that I don't really like him - I do! - it's just that... well... I'm not sure that it would work." The blonde looked up into Nom's dark eyes and, knowing she could trust her, explained the situation as best she could.
Oh, sithspit. I might just as well go find her. ChibiSuta used her infopad to locate her friend's comlink. She's in Nom's, talking about bliels, no doubt. But who knows where she'll go from there. I'll go talk to her. The brunette slipped her own comlink into the pocket of the loose pants she wore to classes and left the chamber.
"I just don't think I can do that, Nom." The little blonde's eyes had long ago filled with tears, and the witch reached out with the Force to quiet the girl's conflicted mind.
"It will be fine," she repeated soothingly. "It will be fine." Kairiku snuggled into the woman's arms and rested her weary head against her chest.
A sudden ring at the door brought both senshi back to awareness. "Who is there?" Nom called, her irritation apparent.
"It's Suta," replied a voice. "I need to talk to Kairi-chan."
The woman looked down at the girl now on her lap for permission. "Yes, come in, Suta." The doors slid open, and the odangoed girl rushed in.
"It wasn't you, Kairi-chan," she said abruptly. At her friend's furrowed brow, she elaborated. "Anakin didn't turn because of you. It was something else completely. I know."
"Really?" Kairiku asked despite the tears of joy now gathering in her eyes.
"Really."
Although ChibiSuta had removed one of Kairiku's primary concerns from her mind, the blonde remained uncertain. She was elated that she would have no part in one of the most important events in Star Wars as she knew it, but this reassurance was far overshadowed by the fact that a romance with Anakin was bound for failure.
After excusing herself from Nom's, the blonde wandered the Temple aimlessly, searching for a place to comfort her, but instead of finding relief, she was only reminded of her situation. When she went into the café where she'd met Anakin, she saw Priire and Kousotsu talking and laughing in the same booth the two blondes has been in that morning. When she approached the crystal room, the Force impressions of Koumi and her boyfriend Kirran prevented her from going any nearer. When she passed the Temple's new private holovid theaters, she saw that one had been reserved for a certain Jedi Master Zaixon and Sunaraashi Zyta.
New conflicting thoughts entered Kairiku's mind with every step she took. I don't want to be ranked second in anyone's heart, especially someone who's first in mine. Tears threatened her remarkable composure. But... he'd be so fun to date. She smiled. But Amidala... Padme... I can imagine playing sabacc with him all night... and talking... I can't compete with a queen!
Finally, Kairiku found her way to the Room of a Thousand Waterfalls. She had always felt safe there, comfortable - maybe it was her newfound Gungan nature, being, in effect, their senshi. The young girl felt the weight of the world lift from her as she inhaled the moist warm air and listened to the rush of water enveloping her. She slowly walked to the back of the room to the biggest waterfall and inched her way behind it. Looking up, she saw the distant stony ledge from which the water fell; looking straight, the rest of the room was a dancing blur of color through the sheet of liquid. Sitting on an ornate bench carved into the rock wall, she shut her eyes and focused solely on the Force flowing, like water, through her, hoping for some sort of guidance.
What felt like moments later, Kairiku was brought to awareness by the sound of a muffled giggle and the sensation of water droplets collecting on her cooling skin. Her eyes shot open to see the blond boy about whom she'd been thinking emerging from the water in some sort of bubble. "By the Force," she mumbled quietly.
Anakin laughed happily as his head came above the surface. "It's a Force bubble," he replied to her silent inquiry. "It's easy to do, or at least, it is when your midichlorian count is higher than Master Yoda's. And it's wizard to see a waterfall from underneath. Come on, I'll show you." Kairiku remained seated as she looked dubiously at the widening depression in the water. "See, now it's a bubble for two." Despite herself, Kairiku giggled as she imagined her knight in shining armor riding up in an underwater bubble. "Come on," Anakin insisted. "It's safe, and we won't run out of oxygen, no matter how long we stay under."
Noting that he was completely dry, Kairiku stood. "All right," she said. "How do I get in?"
"Here." Anakin brought the bubble nearer the edge of the pond, only a few feet from the shore. "Now just take a big step in." The blond girl did as she was instructed but, unused to the instability of water, toppled over onto Anakin. "Watch your step," he said with a sheepish grin.
Once Kairiku was settled on her side of the bubble, the pair began to descend into the water. She readied a scream in case the water overflowed, like a glass bowl pushed downward in a tub, but was amazed when the water stayed obligingly away from the two. Soon they were fully immersed, and she released an awe-infused sigh.
"Pretty hoth," he said with a smile.
"What happens if I put my arm through the side?" she asked in curiosity.
"Try it." As Anakin squinted his eyes a little, Kairiku cautiously poked first a finger, then a hand, then an entire arm through the perimeter of the bubble. "I can reseal the bubble as your arm moves through. It takes a little more effort, but I can do it." She withdrew her arm, finding beads of warm water resting on her bare flesh.
"Wow," she sighed. "I wish I could do this."
"You can. All you need is the Force, and everyone has that. Most people could do this if they knew how. I can show you sometime, if you'd like."
"I'd love it." She gazed sidelong at her companion, his beautiful eyes sparkling with concentration.
"Here we are," he said. The entire time, they had been traveling to a spot several feet under the waterfall. "This is what a waterfall looks like to a fish."
Kairiku giggled as an idea occurred to her. "Can I stand up out into the water?" she asked.
"Sure. Just use this." Anakin produced a small compressed air tank, which Kairiku recognized as an A99 Aquata breather, like those she knew Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan had used on Naboo. "These two barrels on the ends are filled with compressed oxygen. Put this end in your mouth, and inhale." Softening his voice, he smiled up at the already kneeling girl. "I'd hate to see anything happen to you."
Kairiku returned the smile a moment before her head emerged from the bubble and entered the turbulence. The water swirling around her felt like a luxurious dip in a hot tub, massaging her face and scalp as her hair fell out of its odango and swirled around. It enveloped her completely, soothing her previously tattered nerves in a relaxing haze. Opening her eyes to the light above her, she could just barely make out the shape of the rock overhand through the frenetic ripples, the green of the plants surrounding the pond scattered into a million points of color. She sighed inwardly as she lowered herself back into the bubble.
"Gods, Anakin," she gasped, overcome by the aquatic beauty above her. He smiled knowingly.
Something about him is just so... incredible, she thought. Some sort of magnetism... I'd think he were playing me, but I know he's not. As she blinked, she rejoiced in the fact that her optic nerves refilled with the sight of the Force-sensitive blond boy beside her.
If not for a lifetime, for now.
ChibiSuta glanced up from her computer console as a smile spread across her face. She reached into her pocket for her comlink and, finding it, dialed Nom's ID.
"I don't think Kairi-chan will be needing those ruby bliels tonight."
"Anakin?" she asked quietly.
"Yes?" He turned to look at her, and the light cascading through the prismatic water cast a thousand dramatic rainbow shadows across his face.
"Why do you like the water?"
"I don't know, really. It's so calm and soothing - even when it's churning, there's some peace to it. I... I can't explain." He smiled. "It's kind of ironic that I, a desert slave, find comfort in the water. Like..." He paused, gazing into Kairiku's eyes with such intensity that she didn't dare look away. "Like I've been searching all my life for something I've just now found."
He leaned over and brushed a soft, sweet kiss across Kairiku's lips, and they smiled in unison. And as she nuzzled her head into the crevice of his neck to watch the crimson daylight fade from the water above, one thought echoed through her mind.
If not for a lifetime, for now.
About the Senshi in this story:
Kairiku/Sailor Chibi Naboo
ChibiSuta/Sailor Corellia
Audra/Sailor Alderaan
Nom/Sailor Dathomir
