Child of Sah'ot

Disclaimer: I do not own Star Wars and am making no money. The characters mostly belong to G. Lucas, and those that don't are so embedded in his setting that they might as well.

Author's Note: This is something I've wanted to write for a long time. It takes the EU into account but only loosly - I generally use it for flavour rather than substance. Mon Mothma apparently did have a son called Jobin who died at Hoth - at least according to Wookiepedia. This is dedicated to Ziggy.

Prologue

“Who was it bore you, child? One of

The long-lived nymphs who lay with Pan –

The father who treads the hills?”

Oedipus the King

The deep waters of Lake Sah’ot were beginning to lighten, but as yet the sun had not yet risen in the sky, there was only a pale glow on the horizon. A speeder arced around the shoreline, coming to rest close but not too near the white dacha mansion. The engines silenced, a cloaked figure stepped out, a bundle in her arms. “Are you sure about this?” the man in the driver’s seat, also cloaked, whispered. “How do we know that-?”

“The Force guides me. Do not hide a snake in a man’s palace but in his bed. Your fears are unfounded.”

“The child should be with us. He should experience the thrill of the Dark Side before he can talk...”

The shrouded woman turned her back on her companion. “You’ve presented these arguments already and you have not my gifts, which even he remarked on. Trust in him, if nothing else.”

The man bowed his head over the wheel and murmured, “Always, sister.”

Seeming to glide rather than walk toward the grounds of the dacha, the woman moved like a shadow under the lee of this tree, now that. There were men patrolling the grounds, but they seemed never to encounter her, as if she knew which way each of them would move before they did. On the marble steps she laid her bundle, lowering it tenderly to the ground. “Be well, my lord,” she whispered, “I look forward to the day we meet again...” And she vanished, the only evidence of her passing the hum of a distant speeder.

Cries soon issued from the marbled porch, short and shrill, distressed at being left alone. The guards came running, but stopped a foot away as they realised the source of the noise. “’Tis a child...” their captain said softly and picked it up and rocked it a little in his arms. The crying stopped.

“But how did it get there? Surely we’d have seen...?”

The captain moved aside the blankets and was captivated by a pair of clear blue eyes, the same colour as the lake in summer. “Sah’ot sent the child,” he announced, cradling the babe.

“That’s just a story,” another guard sneered, “you can’t believe that...!”

“And the eyes of the babe were the same shade as the lake, bespeaking of its provenance...” the captain quoted authoritatively, and he held the child out and they all agreed that, yes, they were the same colour. “...’Tis a blessing for the Lady Mothma.”

“Most all Chandrilan babies have blue eyes! Just because a child is abandoned near a lake doesn’t mean it was the work of Sah’ot!” But then the child did an impossible thing: it gurgled and reached a hand toward the nose of the doubting guard. And to the man’s amazement, he felt a gentle pull toward the baby’s hand, as if his nose had been magnetized. “... Well, I guess taking it to the lady won’t do any harm...” he admitted grudgingly, unwilling to admit the now more likely possibility that the child was indeed the progeny of the lake spirits.

The captain, a father of two (the maximum on Chandrila), took the babe to the kitchens where hands were already busy with food for the household. A short, thin woman dressed in white, was supervising. The captain knew that Lady Mothma’s name for her daughter was “little squall”, as her wide eyes, small stature, and quick movements suggested, though the expression on her face bore more resemblance to a watch-beast of Gamorr.

“Lady Lieda, is your mother awake?” he asked respectfully. The first rays were beginning to shine into the wide kitchen.

Lieda turned, scrutinizing the captain, “She always wakes with the sun. Why...?” Then she saw the child. “Whose is that?”

“It was left on the steps, lady,” he wouldn’t mention the legend of Sah’ot to a noble like Lieda. Even if she believed it herself, she would still sneer at him for trusting in an old peasant tale.

“Let me see...” she demanded, and held out her arms for the child. The captain reluctantly gave it up. Her expression softened. Unable to have children because of her illness when a youngling herself, Lieda fell in love with the tiny features and absorbing eyes of the babe, though she had the sinking feeling that some mother would soon rise to claim it, saying it was all a mistake. But to leave a child near the lake, surely that was asking strangers to care for it? She undid the wrappings (who wraps a baby in black cloth?) and checked the sex. “A male child,” she held him close and stroked his head.

Lieda took the boy to her mother. Mothma lay in bed, staring out onto the lake and into the brilliant sunrise. She appeared to be in less pain today, but her face was lined with suffering. When a girl, Lieda had wished for her mother to come back from galactic politics and look after her as she lay alone in bed; but now it was Lieda nursing Mothma; a strange twist of fate, but Lieda was still selfishly aware that her mother had not done this for her.

“Look, Mama – a present from Sah’ot.” She held the boy out for Mothma to see.

“What, you mean someone’s left it here?” Mothma observed her daughter’s possessive face, and inwardly winced at the separation which would occur in a matter of moments. “You must call the local authorities; there’s probably a mother out there desperate to know where her child has gone.”

“I know...”

“I’m sorry, little squall...”

Her daughter’s face hardened, “Don’t be silly, Mama.” She left, bearing the baby with her. I’m sorry... pain lurched through Mothma as she sat up, but she bore it stoically.

But no one came to claim the boy. They tested his blood but it didn’t even match anyone in the Chandrilan archive. For all they knew, he might as well have come from Sah’ot. Lieda named him Jobin, after her dead brother. They celebrated his day of life on the festival of Sah’ot, floating candles in the water.