Angel of Iego

TM Prompt #237: It's your birthday! If anything were possible, what would be your perfect way to celebrate?

( I suppose I would want - well, no, it's hard to think about what I would want, even if anything were possible. )

Padmé Amidala
Star Wars
465 words

TM Prompt #230: Black and white

( Padmé delineated planets by their colour )

Padmé Amidala
Star Wars
456 words

QM Prompt #63: "Ever hear of the word humility?" - It Happened One Night

[locked to Anakin]

I've heard of the word humility, all right. But sometimes, just sometimes, I wonder if my husband has.

When you enter politics, you learn humility at an early age. In fact, you are forced to learn it. This may seem counterintuitive, since in order to be elected you have to tell others of the reasons your policies will succeed over your opponent's, but humility occurs naturally when you suffer your first defeat, and are made to concede to whomever opposed you. No one likes a sore loser. I was apprenticed in graciousness from the age of eight years old, and those lessons have stayed with me to this day.

Anakin ... well, he certainly knew how to give of himself when he was a child. How else could he have entered the pod race which won us the parts to repair my starship? There was certainly no reward for him there, other than helping his new friends. But even when I first met him, humility was somewhat of a problem. I dismissed it then, out of a belief that all young children are somewhat self-centred and apt to consider their own accomplishments as wonderful and amazing. I believed he would grow out of it.

The trouble is, he didn't. I remember our first meeting in ten years, when he and Obi-Wan were assigned to guard me after an assassination attempt. I remember how he tried to show off in front of me, tried to demonstrate all the wisdom he had acquired. I remember when he told me he was more powerful than Obi-Wan, and that the latter was holding him back. Of course, those words were said in a time of extreme grief, right after his mother died. So I was able to dismiss them as well.

But now ... now that he is a part of the Clone War I would have thought the atrocities there could sober him. Instead they seem only to have increased the pride he takes in his accomplishments. I worry for Anakin because I know that humility is an essential quality for a Jedi to possess, and he doesn't seem to understand that. Sometimes I even feel embarrassed for him, and that I have to apologize for his belief that he is the galaxy's gift to the Jedi.

I love him dearly, but that love does not blind me to his faults. Frankly I hope it never will. And I hope that he can take the lessons of humility that I learned so early on to heart, and incorporate them into his way of being.

[/locked to Anakin]

Padmé Amidala
Star Wars
431 words

QM Prompt #60: "Why are your eyes always empty?" - Wuthering Heights

She went to Mustafar full of hope. Bursting with promise.

Padmé was going to prove Obi-Wan wrong. She was going to make him regret telling her such lies. (Leaving aside the fact that he had never lied to her in his life, and had no reason to begin doing so now.) She was going to demonstrate the ultimate logical fallacy of the Jedi Order: that love was not the way to draw out an individual such as Anakin. That in making up their minds about him immediately, deciding instantly that he had turned evil due to a single incident at the Temple, they had alienated him in a way that only she could repair. (Leaving aside the fact that Anakin had exhibited genocidal mannerisms before, with his slaughter of the Sand People.) She was going to remind her husband that he could save her just as himself, that he did not require more power, that all she desired of him was that he accompany her back to Naboo and help her raise the baby. (Leaving aside the fact that he had not had the warmest of reactions to her pregnancy, and that he had looked upon her swelling stomach with increasing fear and scorn ever since the nightmares began.)

She was going to change Anakin. She was going to tell him that none of it mattered anymore, that he could run away with her free of guilt for the first time in both their lives. She was going to rekindle in him the love they had felt when they married, when they first stood on that Varykino balcony and proclaimed their love for each other. Padmé had never stopped feeling that love. And no matter that her emotions boiled over once her skiff landed; no matter that a few tears of uncertainty leaked from her eyes as the platform rose up before her. She prided herself for the simple and unwavering belief in Anakin that the Jedi, blinded by arrogance, could not manage.

She went to Mustafar full of hope.

She left it with a noose around her neck, her eyes empty.

Padmé Amidala
Star Wars
340 words

Forgot to post about this until now, but look what Padmé and I got on Friday!





Yep, we officially won Mod's Choice - Prompt of the Month at quotable_muse! Needless to say, the pup and I are pleased as punch, though I'd be lying if I said we weren't a little shocked! The prompt for which we got the award is #54: Destiny, and while it's good, I don't necessarily consider it an absolutely terrific effort.

Nevertheless, the QM mods seemed to think it was, and so we get this nice shiny banner to display here and in our profile! Thanks, QM Mods! Colour us flattered. :D

TM Prompt #224: Mad

The last time I was truly angry, my frustration was directed at the Jedi. And, if I'm to be truthful, I should admit it wasn't fair to be angry at them. It had to do with Anakin, of course, and some occasion at which he wasn't able to be present. It might have been my birthday, I'm not exactly sure. But we'd planned something special, we were going to eat supper at some restaurant and then come back to my apartment. He'd even hinted he had some special gift for me. I wasn't most upset about the lack of gifts or the fact that we couldn't go out as we'd planned. What angered me most was that, once again, I couldn't spend time with my husband like other wives across the galaxy do every night. I couldn't curl up with him in bed and talk to him about my day and hear all about his. Once again he was being made to spend the night at the Temple, running some stupid busywork errand, and we had to sacrifice our relationship for the greater good.

I know I must sound so selfish, and even now, I'm berating myself for thinking this way. After all, we knew precisely what we were getting into when we agreed to this marriage. We knew we'd be apart more often than together, and that we would have to adapt to each other's respective schedules and never count on being able to see each other nearly as often as we'd like. We knew all of this going in and I promised myself when he proposed that I would never put myself above the good of the galaxy. But promising that on a whim is different from keeping that promise on a long-term basis.

I just worry for the future, that's all. What will happen after the war ends? Will Anakin be more free than before? What if we have children? I fear particularly for that sort of situation. I know I can handle the long absences myself, but could I handle my child having to go through them? We'd have to. That's what I tell myself. We have no choice. That is the reality of our situation.

But I'm a human being, and to deny that I get angry at the situation sometimes would be to deny the facts. I love Anakin. That's why I become emotional.

Padmé Amidala
Star Wars
400 words

QM Prompt #57: "If science teaches us anything, it teaches us to accept our failures, as well as our successes, with quiet dignity and grace." - Young Frankenstein

In my galaxy, science is just another way for politicians to excuse their failures. So you'll pardon my disbelief that this quotation holds true.

I don't mean their personal failures; rather, I am referring to diplomatic failures. I'm convinced we could have kept up with political negotiations insofar as the Separatists are concerned, but beings will always attempt to pursue violent solutions when they are threatened. Everyone was so frightened when the assassination attempts, and ironically, many Senators were more upset about the attempt on my life than I was. Perhaps I'm simply too blasé about threats to my person, but quite frankly I'm used to it. I survived the Trade Federation invasion and I have lived through several other political situations, so there is no reason why I couldn't reasonably have gotten through this. But no: others had to intercede supposedly on my behalf, and what they ended up doing was completely against my wishes.

Science was responsible for the clone soldiers the Republic is using to fight the war against the Confederacy. A Jedi commissioned the clones, but their actual creation fell to the Kaminoans and their model, the bounty hunter Jango Fett. Each clone is a sentient being whose genetic structure has been modified to make it less independent than the original host. They are matured at twice the natural rate, so that a clone who has been alive for ten years looks twenty and is ready for duty. None of these facts were available to the Senate when they voted to give Chancellor Palpatine emergency powers; I have only discovered them through careful, clandestine research. Nor should it surprise anyone that the politicians were not in full cognizance of the truth. Palpatine had them whipped into such a frenzy that I doubt they would have listened to reason anyway.

There are many things wrong with our political system, not least of which is that things like this can happen in the first place. But I think one of the things we need to fix is that we can so easily manipulate the universe, through science, so that it serves our own ends. We jet from system to system in ships with hyperdrives and we exploit planets for their resources, taking them for all they own and leaving them barren balls of dust floating in space. And then, of course, there are these clones. I don't even want to get into the ethical implications surrounding the creation of an army - a sentient army - purely for one's personal use.

So, if I were to reword the quote, I might do it thusly: "If science teaches us anything, it teaches us that the self is the only thing that matters, over and above the natural and necessary constraints of the universe."

Padmé Amidala
Star Wars
464 words

QM Prompt #54: "Destiny! Destiny! No escaping that for me!" - Young Frankenstein

( When you live your life surrounded by Jedi, destiny can be quite the unwelcome concept )

Padmé Amidala
Star Wars
514 words

TM Prompt #220: If you could buy a magic potion, what would it be?

( A magic ... potion? Like in the bedtime tales Daddy used to tell me? )

Padmé Amidala
Star Wars
726 words

QM Prompt #51: "Danger always strikes when everything seems fine." - Seven Samurai

( You know, the strangest thing about the attack on Coruscant was that it happened so suddenly )

Padmé Amidala
Star Wars
456 words