Title: “Padmé Amidala’s Life in the Language of Flowers: Or, The False Flower-Maiden”

Pairing: Not entirely applicable, though Padmé is in love with Obi-Wan and she eventually marries Anakin.

Rating: Uhm, probably a borderline PG-13/R-ish, maybe (?)

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters from Star Wars, more’s the pity! What I do have is an extremely contrary muse that refuses to shut up and leave me alone . . .

Summary: This is one hundred random (but essentially chronological, if with some overlap) moments from the life of Padmé Amidala (whose life is forever altered after she meets Obi-Wan Kenobi), as relayed by the language of flowers. There is a story here – one small thread among the vast woven tapestry of life that is the living history of the galaxy, stretched out and twisted, knotted into the whole, curled down among the roots of time, connecting various moments together – but one must read between the lines to capture it. It is not the truth, for the subtle story of these moments is sketched out here in words, and, in the sin of writing down a life, it inevitably changes the shape of things. But it is nevertheless a form of truth. (From a certain point of view . . . )

Warning: This story functions as a sort of compressed codex for Padmé Amidala’s life (after she first meets Obi-Wan Kenobi), as she is written in my not even nearly complete AU Star Wars series You Became to Me. If I’ve done this correctly, then it should shadow and illuminate and elaborate on the compressed codex of her life as found in my similar piece, “Snapshots of Padmé Amidala’s Life, After Obi-Wan.” If anything doesn’t make sense, please feel free to ask! Also, please be aware that this story technically combines het and slash, with the Obi-Wan/Anakin pairing occasionally being alluded to actually being the true romantic pairing of the story.

Author’s Notes: 1). For anyone interested, this not-quite-a-story is compatible with my SW AU trilogy Thwarting the Revenge of the Sith, in my SW AU series You Became to Me, if you squint at some things sideways and view a few others solely through the lens of Padmé’s increasingly desperate eyes. 2). Although this is modelled on a theme set for an LJ community concerned with the language of flowers, basically all I did was take the list and use them as prompts for single-sentence responses in order to sketch out a bit more of a backstory for Padmé. 3). Readers might want to consider the fact that Padmé is being, erhm, meddled with more and more by Sidious (and a certain treacherous family member), the further into this you get, before getting upset about the way that her emotions are all over the map, towards the end.

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“Padmé Amidala’s Life in the Language of Flowers: Or, The False Flower-Maiden”

01. Roses: Passion or Desire: She desires him so that it is like a sickness in her soul, and only by taking as much (if not more) of what he is able to give of himself can she keep from going mad with thwarted passion.

02. Daisy: Gentleness: He treats her with such gentleness that she knows, absolutely and without question, that he would be a wonderful father, and so finds herself railing once again at an Order that would demand such sacrifice of its members and give so very little in return.

03. Petunia: Resentment: Her resentment of the Jedi Order and his devotion to that Order is so absolute on some days that she treads very near to the ragged edges of her control over her fury and frustration, for she cannot believe that the rest of the galaxy remains so blind to the fact that children (like Obi-Wan once was!) are every day being torn away from their loving families to be brainwashed and manipulated and conditioned and controlled and essentially enslaved by this inhumane Order, and she wants so badly to trumpet this truth that the desire burns within her like poison.

04. Pansy: Remembrance: Every recollection she has of him is almost painfully clear, though there are, of course, some memories that she dwells on (and daydreams about) more than others, especially at night, when simply remembering him is no longer enough to satisfy her . . .

05. Tulip: Declaration of love: Each glad smile, each tight embrace, each unabashedly warm glance and softly lingering touch is an open declaration of love, and there are days when she feels as if she’s shamelessly (and all but bodily) throwing herself at him, though somehow he never seems to notice.

06. Sunflower: Haughtiness: There is a certain amount of haughtiness that she tends to adopt, as Queen, if only to provide herself with some much-needed distance between herself and the suffering and pettiness that all too often seem to surround her, but it is impossible to be on the receiving end of a smile from him and not be reduced to a blushing girl with a powerful crush.

07. Lilacs: Youthful or Acceptance: He’s so youthful in appearance that many beings have a hard time remembering (much less accepting!) that he’s a grown man and a proven Knight and Master to an apprentice of his own, but she’s never really been able to see him as anything other than a man, not even when he was still technically only a Padawan learner himself.

08. Iris: Wisdom: She keeps waiting and waiting for the kind of wisdom to come to her that her people seem to believe that being Queen automatically grants a person; unfortunately, though, she gets the feeling that she’ll still be waiting for it when the day of her death finally arrives.

09. Peony: Bashfulness: It isn’t at all like her to be shy, but she can’t help feeling a certain amount of bashfulness, the first time they meet face to face again, after spending so much time conversing by comm and by letters, with so much of the galaxy spread out between them.

10. Lily (White): Purity: She wonders, some days, if the purity of her love for and desire for and need for him in her life shouldn’t cancel out the purity of his devotion to the Jedi Order and to his vows; the Force, though, seems to take no more notice of her musings than he does of her desperate and unwavering love for him.

11. Daffodil: Unrequited love: She knows, logically, that this can never be anything other than an unrequited love, especially after she managed to push so far and so hard that he finally felt he had to explain that his devotion to the Jedi Order included a vow of absolute chastity that simply cannot be idly broken (and which he insists – and honestly seems to believe – that he can never see himself breaking, for any reason whatsoever); and yet, still, she cannot stop herself from dreaming of and hoping for more from him than this.

12. Orchid: Beauty: He’s not exactly unmoved by her beauty (he’s made too many offhand remarks about a few specific gowns and certain hairstyles and colors that particularly suit her for her to believe that he’s entirely blind to her charms) so much as it is that her beauty simply inspires in him no physical desire, only a coolly distant sort of purely aesthetic pleasure.

13. Carnations: Fascination: Her fascination with him is such that she was entirely unsurprised to find that her decoy Queen (her other half, her best friend, her beloved Sabé) loved him with an equal ferocity, and she is also wholly unsurprised to discover that the Crown Prince of Alderaan (a truly principled man of exquisite taste and refinement with an enormous heart and unwavering sense of duty) is just as thoroughly smitten with and bewitched by Obi-Wan as she and Sabé are.

14. Baby’s Breath: Happiness: Happiness is never any further away than a single warm look or gentle touch or glad smile of greeting from Obi-Wan, and she might worry about how dependent she is upon his presence in her life if it were not for the strength she derives from him.

15. Forget-Me-Not: Memories: Her memories are so infinitely precious to her and she has such a horror of forgetting even so much as a single detail that she keeps multiples of private logs and journals devoted solely to nothing but the recording of all her many interactions with Obi-Wan.

16. Gardenia: “I love you in secret”: Her love for him is supposed to be a secret, but there are times when she wonders if the only person in her immediate circle who doesn’t yet know that secret is Obi-Wan himself . . . and whether or not she shouldn’t find a way to let him in on it that he won’t be able to dismiss or ignore.

17. Violet: Simplicity: Really, it’s simplicity in itself: she loves him, but he’s a Jedi and they’re forbidden any lasting attachments, so she’s doomed to love him silently, without ever receiving any acknowledgment or true return of either that emotion or the devotion to him that it inspires.

18. Chrysanthemum: Optimism: There are days when even her optimism fails her, when she hurts so much, for love and for want of him, that she wonders if it might not have been better to have never met him at all, because it hurts her so much and really, what use is hope, when she knows perfectly well that she can never have him, so long as he is a Jedi, and that who he is, as a person, is so inextricably bound up with being a Jedi that even if he were no longer a Jedi and she did have him, she still would not truly have him, and so what sense does it make for her to continue torturing herself, thus, with hopes than can never be fulfilled and a love that can never be returned, no matter how desperately hard she wishes or how hard she tries or how optimistic she tries to be?

19. Snap Dragon: Deception: It is and it isn’t an act of deception, to lead her family to believe she’ll eventually settle down with someone and start a family of her own some day, for she truly does want to be able to do just that, even if she seriously doubts she’ll ever find anyone she can truly have and care for enough to be willing to give up both her dreams (impossible though they may be) and her (all too real and demanding) career for.

20. Queen Anne’s Lace: Fantasy: It’s a common fantasy that she has and an even more common dream, yet she never tires of the thrill she gets from imagining that his devotion to the Order never included such a vow of chastity and that he fell in love with her even as she was falling in love with him, so that she is in fact (either secretly or openly, depending on the mood she happens to be in that day) now Padmé Amidala Naberrie Kenobi.

21. Poppy: Eternal sleep or Imagination: Her imagination is so much better than reality that some days she catches herself longing for eternal sleep, and it’s on those days that she throws herself into her work with such a passion that her handmaidens all look at her askance and wonder and worry most about her seemingly fragile state of mind.

22. Marigold: Cruelty: If he were truly leading her on, then it would be an act of cruelty; he’s a Jedi, though, and he just doesn’t understand, and, anyway, she’s fairly sure she’d hurt even more without him in her life as such a good friend than she does now (with his presence in her life as merely a friend), so she clings to him with that much more strength and determination and need, no matter how much it hurts her to know that she’ll never be able to have him in the way that she truly desires him.

23. Bluebell: Humility: Before coming to know him, herself, she never would have believed a man could be so honestly self-effacing and have such a low sense of self-worth and still be such an accomplished Jedi and as good of a man as he is; somehow, though, his ridiculous (to the point, sometimes, of being unhealthy) amount of humility only serves to make him that much more effective, as a Jedi, and that much more approachable and easier to care for, as a man.

24. Cosmos: Modesty: It truly isn’t false modesty that makes him behave as if and speak as though he is the very least of all the Jedi, and she often finds herself wondering how he can be so perceptive about everyone else and yet so gorram blind about his own worth, his own strength, his own infinitely precious and incalculable value . . . and cursing the Jedi Order (and especially Qui-Gon Jinn!) for doing this to him.

25. Holly: Foresight: He always seems to have anything and everything she could ever possibly want or need (save that one thing she most desires and which he cannot give), when she actually gets to visit him, and she wonders, sometimes, if that’s simply foresight or something perhaps granted to him by the Force to know about ahead of time, or if it’s actually just that he knows her so very well that he can anticipate her needs that perfectly.

26. Dandelion (Weeds): Faithfulness: Her faithfulness to him has never wavered, not truly: even when she participated in her ritual coming of age, her mind and her heart were both fixed entirely on him, and the fact that the stranger she chose to be with looked vaguely like him only made it that much easier to convince herself that it was truly him until the deed was done and she was finally able to leave and freed from her sister’s endless nagging, for putting the ceremony off for so long.

27. Bird of Paradise: Magnificence: The magnificence of the man is heart-stopping: when he moves in the steps of a kata, it’s like seeing grace and beauty and unadulterated sex in motion, and, when he smiles, it is as if all of the light in the ’verse has gathered together in one place and time, to shine and shine with magnificence on whomever he has chosen to bestow his regard.

28. Lotus (Blossom): Mystery: There’s a mystery surrounding his past, as one of the so-called children of Coruscant, that she would give almost anything to plumb, if only to be able to say that she knows, absolutely, from whence he came and who his parents and his kin are and from whom he got those incredible eyes of his and that breathtaking smile and that brightly shining bewitching hair, and it irks her to no end that the Order’s rules about separating those taken for training from their families are so deeply ingrained in him that he does not seem to care that he knows essentially nothing about his past or his origins.

29. Buttercup: Childishness: He doesn’t understand petulance or childishness in others because he had no real childhood, growing to maturity in an environment that did not tolerate selfishness or frivolity, and she wonders, sometimes, how much different he might be, if he’d been raised in a loving environment that allowed him to be a child, first, before forcing him to adulthood.

30. Jasmine: Sensuality: There is unconscious sensuality to the rhythm and sway of his walk, the way his body moves and glides so that one cannot help but admire the long lines of well-turned, lithely muscled legs, the chiseled jut of a hip at the pivot of a turn, the breadth of shoulders and the muscles at play across his chest, as he twists and bends, and she has to wonder what he would be like, if he were not so very unconscious of himself, of his grace and appeal, though the thought alone is enough to unhinge her knees and make her body bloom with heat.

31. Lavender: Devotion: Obi-Wan’s devotion to Anakin Skywalker, his Padawan learner, is perhaps the only thing that is stronger than his loyalty to the Order, and (despite herself, in spite of the fact that she knows such jealousy is beneath her, petty, unbecoming in the very worst of ways) she finds herself bitterly envying the young boy for that.

32. Fir: Time: Time is supposed to make one wise, to heal one’s wounds and erase all sorrows, but all that the passage of time ever seems to do for her is make her ever more and more aware of what she’s missing out on, because she’s spending so much of her time without him there with her and she’s spending it all without him in the way she most wants to have him in her life.

33. Sage: Virtue: She finds it almost hysterically funny, to think that there are individuals who worry about her virtue, when she goes to meet with Obi-Wan alone, and no one who seems to pay enough attention to worry about his virtue, instead!

34. Mistletoe: Affection: He eventually grows so accustomed to (and comfortable with) her presence in his life that he does not hesitate to show her affection, anymore, when they are in private or amongst close friends, and she treasures every glancing kiss he bestows to her cheeks and forehead, every warm touch he casually bestows upon her, every embrace that she doesn’t have to instigate or suffer through feeling the awkward uncertainty of his unmoving and ill-at-ease body as he freezes up in reaction to her closeness, considering it a personal triumph on her part to consider how much she’s taught him to relax and be more human, at least around her.

35. Camellia: Gratitude: There are some who think her friendship with Obi-Wan and her fascination with him stem solely from gratitude, for his part in the reclaiming of Naboo from the invading forces of the Trade Federation, but she’s quite certain that the truth of the matter is that she would love him no matter what the circumstances under which they could’ve first met might have been or what the outcome of their actual first meeting could have so easily been (even had they not triumphed, in that battle, even had she been forced to become a Queen in exile for the rest of her life), for his is the mind and heart and soul most like her own that she’s ever known, outside of Sabé, and she simply cannot imagine a set of circumstances in which they could have come to know each other and not in some way become close.

36. Ebony: Darkness: She can feel darkness beckoning to her, sometimes, trying to tempt her with the thought that perhaps she could truly have him, if only she’d be willing to do or to be something other than what or how she is, as Queen and Senator; she wants to have Obi-Wan and to walk with him in the light, though, not to skulk with him in shadows, and so that darkness ultimately has no real power over her.

37. Four Leaf Clover: Good luck: When not caught up in the midst of a dangerous mission, he always manages to comm and wish her good luck, whenever she has a hearing or a debate or anything else like that to go to and take part in and he happens to know about it, and it warms her heart endlessly, that he should remember her and care enough to wish her well in her endeavors.

38. Snowdrop: Hope: The hope that one day something will change and either he will be able to be with her or else she will find someone enough like him to be able to be at least mostly happy with that person is what keeps her going, on her bad days, even though it’s a hope that inevitably grows fainter, dimmer, and seemingly more foolish with the passage of time.

39. Ivy: Friendship: She’s essentially promised him that, if friendship is all she can have of him, then she will take it and be grateful and not try to push him for anything more; her heart makes her a liar, though, for she constantly, desperately wants more, and not even the fear that he might withdraw from her, if he should ever come to understand how much she still desires him and adores him, is enough to make her stop dreaming of him and wishing for more than his presence in her life as just another friend, however close or warm his friendship might be.

40. Cactus: Endurance: His endurance, during his katas, is superhuman, and a puerile part of her hindbrain cannot help but imagine how virile and long-lasting he would surely have to be, in bed, given his stamina and persistence.

41. Hyacinth (Purple): I’m sorry; please forgive me; sorrow: She can’t stop crying, and her handmaidens don’t know what to do, to comfort her, unable to comprehend that nothing in all the worlds can help her, so long as the memory of his words (“I’m sorry, Padmé, I don’t mean to hurt you – and please forgive me if I ever led you believe that I might one day be able to give you something more than just my friendship – but I’m afraid my answer must remain ‘no,’”) still echoes relentlessly in her ears.

42. Hyacinth (Yellow): Jealousy: It’s ridiculous, to be so envious of a child, but her jealousy of Anakin Skywalker knows no bounds, whenever she sees them together and observes the all but careless signs of open affection between them.

43. Lily (Orange): Hatred: It’s not exactly hatred, but Force, the thought of those two together, when all she’s ever wanted was to be closer to Obi-Wan – !

44. Grass: Submission: It’s a kind of submission to a baser instinct, she knows, but for pity’s sake, it’s not like she’s hurting anyone (except maybe herself) or as if she allows herself to give in to or indulge any of her flaws, other than this obsessive desire to be able to love Obi-Wan!

45. Lemon: Zest: Her newest handmaidens keep insisting that zest and variety are the spice of life and trying to get her to do and to try new things (which she rather suspects is because they’re tired of seeing her silently struggle with herself and are too young to really understand her love for Obi-Wan), and, while she appreciates their efforts to distract her and keep her empty hours occupied by things other than her own restless thoughts and daydreams, she’s simply too tired to indulge them and too exhausted to try to pretend that she even wants to humor them, anymore.

46. Monkshood: Chivalry: Chivalry will never be dead so long as the Jedi Order remains and contains Knights who, like Obi-Wan, understand that strength and gentleness are not opposites and know, absolutely, the importance of standing by one’s principles (no matter how tempting a compromise may seem), whose actions are trustworthy and admirable and who are truly selfless, caring only about others and using the powers granted to them by the Force only for knowledge and defense, never to attack or to deliberately harm others; sometimes, though, she wishes she could trade some of that oh, so very noble chivalry for just a bit of old-fashioned courtly love!

47. Narcissus: Egotism: Is it egotism to think that she’s good enough for someone like Obi-Wan, or is it just acknowledgment of her worth, as a sentient being, and of his basic right, as a sentient being, to experience the giving and receiving of love, that makes her want so very much to be able to truly love him one day?

48. Oleander: Caution; beware: Sabé attempted, once (admittedly, only after Padmé had suffered through a very bad week and been reduced to inarticulate raging over the idiocy of the Jedi Code and helpless tears for what she could never have so many times as to exhaust herself and doubtlessly frighten her poor young handmaidens), to cautiously broach the subject of her infatuation/preoccupation with Obi-Wan, trying to warn her to beware of her feelings; all it accomplished, though, was to make her laugh bitterly and call Sabé a hypocrite, for trying to warn her against the exact same thing she knows Sabé suffers from, too, given how much (and how painfully) she also pines after the man.

49. Prickly Pear: Satire: There’s a satire that they play on the holovids, sometimes, about the Jedi and their rule forbidding attachments, and she used to find it quite funny, as a child, because it made it so obvious just how unhealthy and impossible such a rule actually is; now, though, the thought of it alone is enough to put her in tears, given how true it is and how much she knows this unreasonable rule has robbed Obi-Wan of experiencing the true fullness of life.

50. Rose (Black): Death: She wonders, sometimes (admittedly, somewhat morbidly, and a more than a little bit tiredly), if even death will be enough to break the hold that Obi-Wan has over her heart and her thoughts, or if she’ll find herself haunting him in death, too, lingering to watch and to sigh over him and all that she’s missed out on sharing with him (much as she has while living), after she’s shuffled off this mortal coil . . .

51. Spider Flower: Elope with me: Anakin’s proposal (that they leave behind their lives and responsibilities to run off together somewhere and get married, and damn the consequences!) is so preposterous that her first instinct is to laugh to the point of tears, and his second suggestion (that they could become lovers and actually hide it from the people who care about them) is even more ridiculous, given how close she is to some of her handmaidens and how close he is with his Master (with Obi-Wan, for whom she would rather die than ever risk causing him pain), and so she cannot, for the life of her, understand why the two ideas have lodged so firmly in her mind.

52. Balm: Sympathy: The sympathy and the pity in Beru’s eyes gets to her more than anything, until she feels a desperate urge to scream at the sweet young woman that she loves Anakin’s Master, not Anakin himself, and only the impossibility of trying to explain both that fact (not only to Beru but to Anakin, who doesn’t seem to suspect a thing about her wholly inappropriate attachment to Obi-Wan) and the recurrence of the (insane, ridiculous, wrong, and yet somehow increasingly seductive, increasingly possible seeming) consideration she keeps finding rising up in her thoughts, whenever she looks at Anakin anymore, stops her from speaking out.

53. Aloe: Grief: Her grief at Anakin’s sorrow feels false, to her, for she knows she should have and could have done more, to repay Shmi Skywalker for her unstinting aid and kindness, instead of leaving it up to Obi-Wan and Bail to help Shmi secure her freedom and safety and comfort, and, though she tries not to dwell on the fact that she (as Queen or as Senator) could have found a way to pay to have the entire combined Skywalker-Lars family relocated to a safer planet, she cannot quite keep from thinking less about what a tragedy Shmi’s death is personally and more about what an awful waste of life it represents, given Anakin’s violent reaction to losing her.

54. Candytuft: Indifference: It’s not quite indifference to her, but more as if she simply ceases to exist for Anakin, once Obi-Wan has reentered the picture, and she finds a kind of madness taking over her and seizing control of her tongue, saying things deliberately designed to bring that attention squarely back to her, even though she knows (even as she is speaking) that she is going to regret drawing his interest back to her.

55. Feverfew: Protection: She may be all but blind to the Force herself, but she’s felt the touch of the Force through Obi-Wan enough that she can sense the protection he has automatically flung after her, through the Force, keeping her from hitting the ground too hard or at such an awkward angle as to be guaranteed to hurt (or perhaps even kill) her, and so knows, absolutely, that the skiff will not be stopping for her, though Anakin’s startled and anguished cry indicates that he, at least, cares enough that he wants to stop, even if duty forbids him from doing so (and even if, as a treacherous part of her brain gleefully informs her, he had not been paying enough attention to her to react in time to try to cushion her fall, as Obi-Wan so apparently had been).

56. Forsythia: Anticipation: The anticipation of something awful coming is unbearable, and so she forces the clone soldiers to leave the battlefield and take her after Obi-Wan and Anakin, in their pursuit of Dooku, suddenly convinced that something has somehow gone horribly wrong.

57. Nettle: Slander; you are spiteful: She snaps at Sabé that she’s being spiteful and mean-spirited and is just jealous that she’s finally found happiness with someone else before her brain has quite enough time to catch up with her tongue, when Sabé comes to her bearing what she obviously hopes is merely slander and examples of malice and envy, in tales of misconduct (regarding her behavior, at the Lake House Retreat, with Anakin), unable to bear the look on Sabé’s face of quiet expectancy as she waits to have those tales (and her fears) refuted, ashamed of herself beyond words for being unable to deny them.

58. Venus Fly Trap: Duplicity: It’s duplicity, nothing more and nothing less, and she forgets, half of the time, that she’s handfasted to Anakin at all, so fully does she immerse herself in the illusion that nothing has changed, too terrified to face the implications of accepting what she has done, how much has changed, and how badly she has screwed things up.

59. Bachelor’s Buttons: Celibacy: She doesn’t understand how it can be possible for Obi-Wan to go through his entire life abiding by a vow of celibacy, unless the Force can somehow do something to prevent certain natural functions of the body, especially not after she’s been with Anakin, whose endurance and constant readiness to give it a go (or a few more goes) is almost ridiculously superhuman and which he has blushingly chalked up to the fact that he is a Jedi.

60. Sweet Pea: Goodbye; departure: Each goodbye stings her conscience, for with every departure she feigns sadness and desperate fear, over Anakin’s leaving and the danger he’s going to put himself squarely back within (given the continuance of the war), when in truth she finds herself growing more and more grateful for his absence . . . and more and more desperately aggrieved, heartbroken, and frightened over Obi-Wan’s leaving for the exact same missions.

61. Myrtle: Home: She’s tainted her home, by bringing Anakin there, for it used to be her sole safe haven, where she could be just herself and not have to worry about hiding her love for Obi-Wan or being judged for her weakness, and now she cannot help but feel Anakin’s lingering presence and possessive eyes and needy (all but desperate for touch, embrace, reassurance of affection) desires clinging to her, seeing her and judging her every move and thought.

62. Angelica: Inspiration: Obi-Wan is her true inspiration, her reason for going on and for striving as hard as she does to end this terrible war, and it pangs her conscience, to let Anakin think she’s fighting so hard out of altruism or love and worry for him; to speak of Obi-Wan to Anakin would be to shatter him and risk destroying the bond that Anakin and Obi-Wan share, though, and (despite her lingering jealousy over that bond) Anakin’s need for Obi-Wan is one that she frankly regards as even greater even than her own.

63. Begonia: Deformity: When they are alone together, Anakin’s behaves as though his mechno is some kind of awful deformity; in her eyes, though, it is proof that he’s still human and fallible, and, though it bothers her to see it and she can barely stand to have those cold bare metal fingers touch her, a part of her (probably influenced by the many years she’s spent, resenting and even hating the Jedi Order for attempting to force its members to be other than human and desperately wishing that, once – just once!– Obi-Wan might be just a little bit less than the perfect Knight, when it came to her) nonetheless cherishes the knowledge of its presence, beneath that long glove Anakin so often uses to cover it up.

64. Garlic: Courage; strength: She hates herself for allowing her anticipation over Obi-Wan’s return to guide her behavior with Anakin, but she’s come to dread Anakin’s returns and his demands on her affections so much that she has to concentrate on Obi-Wan, to muster any kind of seeming joy for Anakin and to keep from flinching away from his too desperate embraces, and it isn’t that she lacks courage or strength so much as it is that she’s just too blasted tired to deal with a hurt Anakin and too wary of wounding him to deliberately run the risk of doing so.

65. Yarrow: Healing: She essentially panics every time she learns Obi-Wan has been hurt in battle, even if it’s only the smallest of scratches and irregardless of the fact that the Force always seems to aid and speed healing, in Jedi, because she knows that it means Anakin is going to come home in a sulk for having “failed” to protect Obi-Wan and she also knows that it means that Obi-Wan is going to be tired and feeling a sense of failure, himself, for being so careless as to get hurt, and in no mood to see or speak to anyone but Anakin, until such a time as his healing is complete, and the knowledge that she’s going to have to put up with a fretful, sullen, needy Anakin without even the reprieve of knowing she’ll be able to see Obi-Wan, too, for at least a little while, is more than enough to make her break down in helpless tears.

66. Rhubarb: Advice: Her handmaidens keep trying to give her advice (quietly, discretely, but insistently and constantly), so she can keep her deceptions with Anakin functioning and separate from her lies with Obi-Wan and those she’s given out to everyone else, and, while a part of her appreciates their help, a larger part wishes that they would just leave her alone, even if it meant the inevitable toppling of her house of lies.

67. Blackthorn: Difficulty: Sola keeps referring to the need to keep her relationship with Anakin a secret as a minor little difficulty and a temporary inconvenience, and she wonders, sometimes, if Sola is deliberately downplaying the seriousness of the situation to try to make her feel better, or if her sister is actually so blindly, willfully romantic that she actually believes it’s even possible for Padmé and Anakin to ever have anything at all like a happily ever after.

68. Turnip: Charity: There’s a certain charity ball event every midsummer’s day, on Theed, and she had been hoping to try to get out of going, this year, but then Obi-Wan and Anakin were given leave, and they both showed up on Naboo, and she found herself suddenly frantically calling on her dressmakers, to make her a supremely lovely costume for the event, because she knew that Obi-Wan was going to be there, if only to put in a purely diplomatic appearance.

69. Viscaria: Will you dance with me?: She can see Anakin making his way across the room, towards her, carefully but determinedly making his way through the crowd, obviously meaning to take advantage of circumstances to ask her to dance with him, and is seriously contemplating making a strategic retreat when Obi-Wan suddenly all but magically appears at her shoulder and, with a dazzlingly beguiling smile, takes her hands gently in his, bows gallantly over them, and makes her fall in love with him all over again by quietly asking, “May I have the honor of this dance, Milady?”

70. Carnation (Striped): Refusal; sorry I can’t be with you: She makes sure to sneak in an apologetic look at Anakin, as she dances with Obi-Wan and then Bail and then Obi-Wan again and other dignitaries and allies and Obi-Wan again and again and again, mentally composing a speech (for when they’re finally alone together) about how it’s dangerous for them to be together in public and trying to come up with a way to refuse him gently and tactfully, if he tries to insist on pushing past his former Master to ask her to come dance with him, all the while determinedly ignoring the fact that most of the smouldering possessive looks she keeps catching on Anakin’s face seem to be directed towards Obi-Wan instead of at her.

71. Cobaea: Gossip: There’s gossip, the next day, about how many times she danced with Obi-Wan, and a part of her is so giddily happy, to be linked with him, thus, that she has a hard time keeping from smiling as she gently points out to Anakin how lucky they are that not a single person there observed anything to make them suspicious about her relationship with Anakin.

72. Azalea: Temperance: Nabooians don’t really believe in temperance (being people who enjoy a good glass of fine wine with dinner), but they don’t believe in drinking (or eating or doing much of anything else, either, really) to excess, and so her handmaidens are (probably) understandably shocked, to find her, the day after Obi-Wan and Anakin have departed for the battlefield again, completely roaring drunk and well on the way to drinking herself utterly insensate to the pain.

73. Geranium: Stupidity; folly: Dormé and Sabé are both very careful to speak to her of her handfasting (and supposed permanent marriage) with Anakin as if it were only an act of folly, but she’s heard some of what Dormé said to Anakin, after she learned of what they’d done, and she’s heard some of what Sabé has said to Dormé on the subject, too, so she knows they both think it stupidity on the order almost of insanity, and, to be perfectly honest, there are days when she’s not sure that it wasn’t an act of madness.

74. Abutilon: Meditation: She loves to watch Obi-Wan meditate and wishes that she could sink down into the Force so deeply that she blossoms with light as though literally lit from within (shining like a burning candle in a frosted lantern will glow); even if she were not essentially wholly non-Force-sensitive, though, she knows that her mind is far too restless to tolerate the kind of stillness that true meditation requires, at least not for the amount of time Obi-Wan so often and so effortlessly spends at his meditations.

75. Venus Looking Glass: Flattery: Obi-Wan doesn’t believe in idle flattery among friends, so she always cherishes compliments from him and carries them close to her heart; yet, when he smiles at her (touching her shoulder briefly, gently) and kindly comments that he is glad to see she’s looking far more healthy and robust than the last time he saw her, even though she’s just spent most of a week unable to keep much of anything in her stomach, she shuts her ears and refuses to hear him, too terrified by the possible implications of any weight gain after such a week to even be able to muster up a true smile for him, though (from the shadow of puzzlement in his eyes) she can tell that her apparent nervousness has confused and startled him.

76. Dogbane: Lies: She’s so tired of lies and deception that there are days she finds herself no more than a heartbeat away from yelling at the Supreme Chancellor to stop lying to the Senate, and she begins to worry that perhaps she should get one of her handmaidens to take over for her, on the days when she can feel the anger and desperation building to explosive levels within her.

77. Nasturtium: Conquest: It bothers her how so many members of the Senate (not to mention the media!) keep speaking of this war in terms of conquest, as if the Separatists are no more than some kind of subsentient menace to be squashed and then simply wiped out, rather than dealt with diplomatically and reconciled with as brother and sister members of the Galactic Republic, and, when she finds herself arguing in favor of more diplomatic missions to the point where she has essentially no voice left, at the end of a working day, from raising hers so stridently for so long in the Senate, she absolutely knows that it’s time to start trading off certain days with her current Senatorial decoy and body double, if she wants to continue to avoid exploding during a Senate meeting.

78. Thistle (Scotch): Retaliation: Why so many other members of the Senate cannot seem to understand that the more acts of vindictive retaliation they indulge in now, the harder it will be later to bring the Republic back together and bind up the wounds caused by this awful war, she is quite certain she does not at all understand, and she finds herself being reduced to tears of frustration at odd (and often difficult to hide) junctures the more unreasonable (and idiotic!) her fellow Senators become.

79. Tamarisk: Crime: It isn’t a crime to seduce a Jedi, for their training and conditioning is such that they absolutely do know better and generally will only permit themselves to be seduced in situations where it will aid a mission and won’t result in any sort of lasting attachment and might even yield some long-term gain, by preserving certain specific strongly Force-sensitive bloodlines; she knows, though, in her heart, that what she and Anakin have done is not just against custom and wrong but very nearly treasonous, given how important he and Obi-Wan are to the galaxy at large, and so on some days she feels much more like a criminal than just a fool.

80. Lettuce: Cold-hearted: For someone whose marriage hasn’t exactly been a roaring success (given that the whole family knows that Darred is still with Sola only because he feels obligated to Sola and to her family and he loves their girls so much and desperately doesn’t want to hurt them), Sola is surprisingly cold-hearted and unmoved by Padmé’s worries about the handfasting to Anakin being a dangerous mistake, and she finds herself wondering, sometimes, about how single-mindedly pleased Sola seems to be by her illicit relationship with Anakin.

81. Olive: Peace: She longs for peace with such single-minded intensity that she hesitates, at first, to join forces with Bail and Mon Mothma, afraid that such open preparation for disaster and dissension will be tantamount to participating in the planning process for another civil war; in the end, though, she has to admit that something must be done, whether it will affect the coming of peace or not, and so finds herself eventually approaching Bail (supposedly with an invitation for tea) on the prospect of joining forces with him.

82. Hemp: Fate: She believes absolutely in the Lady – the universal power of life and light that the people of Naboo call, by turns, Asherah and Nisaba, and which the Jedi and those like them have named the Force – but she doesn’t like the idea of fate (it bothers her, on a fundamental level, to think that someone or something somewhere might be pulling strings and making them dance to destiny’s foretold tune), even though she has to admit, sometimes, that she has her doubts about just how much free will even someone like her is able to exercise, when it comes to individuals like Anakin and Obi-Wan, who are so filled with the light of the Lady (the power of the Force) that sometimes it seems as though the rules of reality constantly warp and rewrite themselves in their presences.

83. Rocket: Rivalry: She finds herself competing against Anakin for Obi-Wan’s attention and cannot help but laugh (and cry) over the absurdity of a rivalry between her and her handfasted husband for the Jedi Master’s affection.

84. Sainfoin: You confuse me: One day Sabé finally just comes out and says, “You confuse me beyond words, Padmé, to the point where I’m not sure I even know the real you, anymore, and only the fact that I think you confuse even yourself, nowadays, keeps me from dragging you, by force if necessary, to a med-droid for a check up,” and it’s at that moment that she knows she’s reaching the end of her ability to keep on pretending that everything is alright and nothing has changed, and that something awful is bound to happen, sooner or later, because of her weakness.

85. Plum: Independence: It’s not that she doesn’t have any sympathy for those who want more independence from the bureaucracy: it’s that she has no empathy for beings who’d rather fight and kill indiscriminately (or worse yet, join those who fight not for true independence but rather for higher profit margins, as the Trade Federation does) than get together and talk things over like civilized individuals and learn how to compromise and get along like mature sentient beings, and some days she can almost understand why so many on the Senate speak of dealing with the Separatists in all but genocidal terms, which frightens her half out of her mind.

86. Helenium: Tears: Nabooians often have such a hard time conceiving that it’s not unusual to see newly confirmed expectant mothers reduced to tears of joy, but in all honesty it’s fear (plain and simple) and helpless rage that this could happen, after all the precautions they’ve taken, that makes her burst into sobs, when it’s no longer possible to deny that she has to be with child.

87. Crown Imperial: Arrogance: There are some who consider it the height of arrogance, to refer to Anakin as the Hero With No Fear and to Obi-Wan as the Negotiator and the both of them as the Warrior of the Infinite, but such titles give the people hope and they’re true enough that frankly she doesn’t see the harm in it, though she knows it bothers Obi-Wan immensely.

88. Oak: Hospitality: Nabooians are known for their hospitality, and it shames her immensely to have to start limiting the amount of visitors she has, but she’s not ready, yet, to have to deal with the reality of Anakin (and, worse, Obi-Wan) knowing she’s pregnant, and so she simply can’t risk being ill in front of someone or having some sharp-eyed stranger notice the signs and realize (and perhaps publicize) the fact that she’s with child.

89. Southernwood: Banter; jest: She’s never been able to jest with Obi-Wan like Anakin can, and she knows, instinctively, that there’s some vital component of their relationship embodied in the easy, swift give and take and flow and ebb and tide of the banter they so often trade back and forth between them, so it’s one of the few things that she absolutely cannot bring herself to feel bad for, for envying Anakin for having something she does not and cannot share with Obi-Wan.

90. Heath: Solitude: She’s begun to crave solitude and the peaceful silence of her bed so much that it’s become a struggle she simply cannot win, some days, to get up and go in to work, and she finds herself (to her shame) forced to give over more and more of her duties to her handmaidens, especially to her doubles and decoys.

91. Judas Tree: Betrayal: It’s a betrayal, nothing more and nothing less, of both everything she’s ever fought for and believed in and wanted for herself and the galaxy, and so how in the names of all the stars in the galaxy can she ever hope to be able to explain herself to Obi-Wan and not be hated for her blatant treachery and hypocrisy?

92. Chamomile: Patience: She has no patience left for Dormé’s and Sabé’s (increasingly worried) pitying looks and mother-hen fretting over her health, and so she seizes on the first opportunity to send them both away from her, back to Naboo, for the first time in her life oddly grateful for the danger that makes her constantly need to have more handmaidens trained up and ready to be put into service for her.

93. Betony: Surprise: It isn’t exactly a surprise, when Obi-Wan and Anakin are put in charge of the Outer Rim Sieges, but she wants Obi-Wan’s presence and misses him so horribly that her new handmaidens finally insist that she has to start taking a calming draught, because they can’t deal with her crying jags and the workload both and are too loyal to her to simply let her sit alone in the darkness of her bedroom and sob herself out, as one might do with a fretful child.

94. Furze: Anger: Anger at herself and at her body (for betraying her so utterly) comes and goes, waning with her depression and waxing with her frustration, and she knows she needs help and should be seeking professional treatment, but there’s no one she’d ever sufficiently trust to tell enough of what she’s done and what’s happening for anyone to really be able to do much of anything for her, and so instead she hides in her rooms and occasionally will rage and scream herself hoarse and destroy several of her toiletries, to keep from going wholly insane.

95. Pimpernel: Change or Assignation: She wants to see Obi-Wan so badly that, after three months, she seriously starts contemplating just ordering someone to fly her out to wherever he is, for a change, instead of waiting for him to be recalled to Coruscant, and only the thought of what Sabé and Dormé would say and think about such a blatantly obvious assignation (and how badly Anakin would react, to having her show up on a battlefield looking for Obi-Wan) keeps her from calling for her pilot.

96. Borage: Bluntness or Talent: Her talent for diplomacy has been deserting her more and more of late, as her tiredness and frustration and depression drives her to increasing acts of almost shocking bluntness and erratic behavior, and, while her refusal to play nice in the Senate seems to have helped wake some individuals up to the dangers surrounding them, she’s fairly sure that it’s also alerted Bail (the endlessly oblivious) and Mon Mothma (the oddly all but sexless) as to the fact that there is something seriously the matter with her.

97. Freesia: Trust: Trust is a triple-edged sword, liable to cut not only herself and anyone she might think to try to tell the truth to as it could turn about and wound Anakin and Obi-Wan, and so in the end she simply tells herself that she cannot afford to trust anyone else, no matter how much she hurts or how bad things get for her.

98. Dog rose: Pleasure and pain: Loving Obi-Wan is an endless balancing act between pleasure and pain, and sometimes she wonders if she’s being made to pay for all of that pleasure now, for having taken it so much for granted for so long.

99. Fleur-De-Lis: Message: She isn’t strong in the Force, but it doesn’t take a genius to know that there’s really no way out of the predicament she’s gotten herself into, short of death, and she knows she can’t live with herself if she ruins Anakin’s life and breaks Obi-Wan’s heart, in the process, and so she starts to record a series of new private messages for all of her loved ones and friends and even her new handmaidens (none of whom she feels as if she knows very well or as if they truly know her at all well, either), in the eventuality of her sudden, unexpected death.

100. Centaury: Delicacy: Bail pilots the skimmer with an odd mixture of measuredly precise delicacy and almost reckless abandonment that reminds her of the piloting skills she’s often observed in Jedi, and she knows, absolutely, that if anyone can get them safely out of the dangerous welter and confusion of battle, where the Separatists have so suddenly and unexpectedly attacked Coruscant, then he will be the one who does it, but she also knows, with the same kind of unwavering certainty, that it will likely be far better, in the long run, for a lot of beings, if she doesn’t make it, and so she finds herself torn between praying for her own personal deliverance from all trouble (via an honorable death in battle) and begging the Force to spare Mon Mothma and Bail and, yes, even Threepio from the fruit of her foolishness, distracted to the point where she doesn’t even see the end coming until it’s already far too late for her to avoid it.