Circle of healing

XVII.

And I feel safe,

So safe.

So safe.

(Fran Healy)

***

Bright daylight filtered through the dense coppice and flitted over the forest soil. The heavy smell of the damp earth clung to the air and made breathing difficult.

But Padme’s eyes weren’t captured by the play of the light on the soil, but by the young man who sat on the stairs of the temple - his clasped hands on his head, which was resting on his upraised knees.

She couldn’t believe what she saw there. So much had been achieved during the last days. He had laughed again, had made progress in such short a time that she never would have believed to be possible, and now a single nightmare seemed to have destroyed everything. The worst thing by far was the fact that he had started shutting her out again and completely ignored her gentle attempts to talk to him.

For two days she had watched him try to meditate, train, breathe, and think clearly, but to no avail. It was just as though his thoughts were running in endless circles about what the dream had revealed to him. And her patience was exhausting itself rapidly. In the beginning she had thought that it would be good to grant him some quiet, some time to sort his thoughts, but the stoicism and the stubbornness he displayed tortured not only him, but even more so her. They hadn’t been sent here to make everything worse.

A painful pang in her heart showed her just how close they were to that exact stage as her eyes roamed over the food which had remained untouched and grown cold. Hours ago she had asked him to join her. Nothing. No reaction.

But could she step up to him again and challenge him to speak? It seemed to her that this was the only thing she’d been doing ever since she’d met him.

She talked. He kept quiet. She walked towards him, offered him her hand; he turned away from her and pushed aside the helping hand with a perfunctory apology.

Padme was so sick of making the first step. Yet she knew that was exactly what she had to do if she ever wanted to find peace of mind. The revelation only fuelled her ferociousness more.

No matter how much she was used to dealing with difficult problems due to her position as queen, those problems had never been private. No one bothered a queen with personal problems. But Kenobi . . . had been a special case right from the beginning. Never before had she felt the dire need to help so intensively, no matter how impossible and out of her sphere of influence it seemed. Was it selfish now, when her patience was rapidly reaching its end?

Pro and con fought a hard battle inside of her, and her fingers thrummed restlessly against each other they way they always did when her thoughts were troubled. For a while she stared into the Lotus-basin where the water was gurgling with an almost enerveratingly cheerful sound, mocking her dark thoughts - and then her decision was made.

Noiselessly and with squared shoulders she pushed herself away from the filigree railing of the terrace and guided her steps in Obi-Wan’s direction; calm, determined and fluid.

"So?" Padme was a little taken aback when she heard how cool her own voice sounded.

His clasped hands wandered over the short, slightly reddish hair to his neck when he raised his head - only just high enough to look up but not look into her eyes.

"So what?" His voice was slightly hoarse with disuse.

"Your silence and your self-destructive excesses aren’t enough, are they? Are you refusing to eat as well?"

Why was she doing this? Her words hurt her just as much as they hurt him. Nevertheless they had to be spoken in order to make their situation normal again. They had to talk to each other. It didn’t matter how this conversation was started.

"I’m not hungry."

"That’s what you’ve been telling me for days now," she replied. "You’re lying."

His head snapped up at this indictment and their gazes met. For a split second Padme believed to see some deeper emotion in those eyes of his - but this ghost of a feeling vanished before she could be sure.

"What now?" she asked coolly. "Will you give me that long suffering look again and try to tell me to not meddle and go away?" She took a deep breath and pointed at the jungle surrounding them. "Then maybe you would care to tell me where. How far away from you is far enough? Away from the temple? Away from the clearing? From this planet?"

Her voice grew louder but she didn’t care any longer. Even the distraught flickering look in his green-blue eyes bounced off her. "What is it that makes me so repulsive to you? Why is it so damn hard for you to show a little . . ."

She stopped. She hadn’t meant to voice that. Not yet.

"There is nothing that could possibly make you repulsive to me." His voice barely rose above the brightly gurgling water. "I am sorry."

Padme kneeled beside him abruptly, thus forcing him to lower his gaze and follow her movement.

"Are you? Truly?"

A full, dark strand of hair came loose and the curly lock fell into her face, over her brown eyes. Obi-Wan remained silent in the contemplation of her countenance, so close to his own.

She held his gaze as long as she could and then shook her head, agitated.

"I don’t understand you. For one moment, I thought I’d pried open your hard shell and found a way to you, but then you change and I have to start all over again. I just don’t know what else there is for me to do to earn your trust." Impulsively she framed his face with both of her hands, as though this gesture could tell her what was going on inside of him. "What else?"

Obi-Wan uneasily averted the scrutinising glance. "Nothing." He reached for her hands and gently pulled them off his face. "You’ve already done more than I deserve. I . . . I’m sorry."

He tried to lock gazes with her, but failed.

"I know. You’re sorry for everything. If you could you would even take responsibility for upcoming thunderstorms or the crisis in the Republic." When Padme looked up, her eyes were dark, flaming orbs, her cheeks had gained colour. She withdrew her hands forcefully and rose vigorously. "I can’t take it anymore - those constant apologies for every single movement." Padme whirled around, her dark hair framing her face like a dark veil. "Do whatever you want: Be angry, be sad, yell at me, be afraid, hate me. But once and for all: Stop apologising for every breath you take!"

"I could never hate you, even if I . . ."

"No." Padme’s hand rose to stop him. "I don’t want to hear Jedi-temple gems of wisdom now. I almost wish you would hate me. At least that would be something we could work with."

She saw his buried emotions trying to emerge before she turned to go. The cornerstone had been placed.

She couldn’t do any more now. It was his turn.

But she didn’t know if he would answer her challenge. And a continuously growing part of her was afraid of what would happen if he didn’t.

***

Light rain mingled with the dust in the air and covered everything and everyone with a greasy grey veil. Hopelessness reverberated in every shattered rock.

The drizzle hardly brought cooling to the humid air and Sabé felt little droplets of perspiration tickling her hairline and amalgamating with the white make-up.

She was cold nevertheless.

Her scalp and forehead tingled, her heart beat too fast and her mouth was as dry as parchment. She was grateful that it hadn’t yet been necessary to talk to the citizens surrounding her. With Captain Panaka in the lead and tightly followed by Rabé and Eirtae, she fought her way through rubble and debris and struggled with the waves of intense nausea rising inside of her.

Sabé had been trained as a warrior, she had seen fights and had lived through crises without even blinking. But the suffering and the meaninglessness leaping up at her from here took her breath away.

Her hands trembled in the long sleeves of the simple dress. What was she supposed to say when asked for help? Why had she been so obsessed with coming here? She had no protocol for situations like this. Political training - no matter how well thought-out - didn’t include catastrophes like this one.

Sabé urgently wished for Amidala to be in her place, with herself in the cortege.

Through her self-doubts she dully sensed Rabé and Eirtae supporting her like an invisible hand, giving her strength.

That was what Sabé usually did. She gave strength, she supported, she helped, she offered consolation. But always from the shadow, and never as the person in the spotlight, with all the responsibility.

Her strengths lay doing and supporting, not in ruling. She hadn’t been made for this role, and every fibre of herself reminded her of that fact as she stepped through a shattered archway into the makeshift hospital, spreading out in front of her.

For a short period of time the picture she saw made her sway imperceivably. Fear gripped her neck in its icy hand and shook her.

Then Eirtae’s hand touched her elbow reassuringly, a flood of strength poured over her and she knew with an absolute certainty that those women trusted her beyond a doubt, trusted her to go this hard way and manage it in spite of difficulty.

Amidala relied on her mind and her heart.

Now she, Sabé, had to learn to do the same.

The wind turned and carried away the few rainclouds to reveal a bright blue sky.

Sabé clenched her fists and slowly counted to ten. She mustn’t vacillate any longer.

Resolutely she sent the icy fear back to its dark chamber and allowed the confidence of her companions to wash over her soul.

When she stepped to the stretcher of the injured closest to her, nothing of her uncertainty could be seen. The mask was in place once again.

***

Dusk slowly set in. The first stars had risen in the deep blue sky and dipped the forest around her into a mysterious, cool light. The air was heavy and motionless, filled with the fine smell of the blossoming trees in the temple’s garden, and intolerably sultry.

Padme longed for the high, cool halls of the palace. No matter how much the temple-buildings tempered during the decidedly cool nights, they didn’t offer a whole lot of shelter from the unpleasantly oppressive humidity.

Not for the first time she asked herself what the priestesses had wanted to achieve by sending them here. Since they had reached the temple, they did nothing but take a few cautious steps towards each other and even that was just a sham, or so it seemed to her. One step forwards and ten steps back. Right now she couldn’t even tell where he was. That couldn’t possibly have been the purpose of the ritual.

She paced back and forth restlessly. The movement caused her sleeveless, cream-coloured dress to swish around her ankles and she found a little calm in the touch of the rough, cool stone floor under her naked feet. It had been hot, much too hot to wear her usual tunic and pants, but slowly the evening brought cooler air and she shivered ever so slightly.

Without making a conscious decision, her feet resumed their way and while she was still brooding about the meaning and the implementation of the ritual, she suddenly found herself standing on the hot spring’s basin. She remained unmoving, crossed her arms in front of her body and gazed at the water wistfully. She had shied away from this place since Obi-Wan had withdrawn into his shell once again.

For some strange reason she couldn’t quite grasp, it hurt being here and thinking back to what they had shared in this place. Boisterousness and pure joy of life seemed to still reverberate in the air - a faint echo of better days.

Since she had confronted him, she had waited. Waited with the strength of despair that he would come to his senses and realise what they were about to lose. Padme had ceased counting the hours.

Instead she lied to herself, pretended not to need his co-operation and his closeness. Padme began to feel exceedingly weak from the effort.

The thick wafts of mist rising from the basin wrapped humid arms around her and pulled her closer imperceivably, until she sank to her knees on the basin’s edge and sat on her feet. It was so quiet and peaceful here . . .

Why was she yearning for the loud laughter which had sounded here a few days ago? For the bustle, the slight chaos, the jauntiness?

Involuntarily a smile stole forth on her lips. Padme hadn’t allowed herself to think about that part of the night before, but the memories came rushing at her, without her being able to stop them. Without her wanting to stop the memories.

And for the first time since she could think, she enjoyed the thought of not being in control of something.

***

Life.

Never before had the meaning of the word become quite as clear as in these last hours.

Living, surviving, living on, LIVING.

Death had the scene of the accident firmly in its hand. Hundreds had been buried alive and not yet found, desperate relatives searched for their families, women searched for their husbands, children cried for their mothers. In the midst of all this the robes of the healers were gleaming faintly - the radiant blue had become grey by now and the women were hardly able to take any more injured under their wings.

Naara had lost sight of Reaja when she had stayed with a seriously injured young woman. She had used all of her powers, had managed to stop the bleeding, had set the fractures, treated the wounds and calmed the woman.

And she had been so sure that she would be successful - the young woman had regained consciousness and had smiled softly and gratefully when she had seen the dusty grey face of the young novice.

Naara squeezed her eyes tightly shut and stumbled on blindly.

Life.

The air was filled with the opposite.

She saw the young woman’s soft smile in front of her inner eye. It was overshadowed by the picture of the pained statement on the broad, kind face when life slipped away from her ravaged body.

Life.

Naara didn’t want to hear anything about life anymore. She had seen enough, enough of this meaningless fight.

Her first very own patient had died under her hands and there had been nothing she could have done. More than an hour later one of the older priestesses had found the novice and pulled her away from the dead body.

Naara’s thoughts still swirled in the gently caressing rhythm of the mantra she had tried to soothe the woman with.

Living.

Why?

***

‘You can do it. You just need to overcome a tiny bit. You can do it.’

Padmes breath was irregular and flat as she stood on the high edge of the temple’s wall and looked into the depth. Surely, she had climbed into far greater heights before, but never before without protection. Never before had she jumped into the depth without a safeguard.

‘There is no other way.’

It was going to be over quickly. A short fall, a quick impact. Then nothing. Maybe that would bring him to his senses.

With a wildly beating heart she looked over the darkened sandstone walls into the green depth. Her palms grew damp. Cold sweat kissed her forehead.

‘It’s for the best. It can only benefit him. Fear only exists when it is permitted.’

Why didn’t these gems of wisdom help right now?

Gentle wind moved the fabric of her moss-coloured tunic and blew about single fine hairs she hadn’t managed to include in the tight braid onto her forehead. The air was different up here - more free and more fresh, not polluted by the negative vibrations it had down there in his direct vicinity.

Padme swallowed heavily and looked over the wall again - into the deep. Why was she doing this at all? Why was she trying so hard to fix something which might be impossible to fix?

‘For him,’ her inner voice reminded her. ‘For us. For both of our futures.’

Her toes moved a few careful centimetres more towards the edge. The temple’s garden seemed even more green and peaceful from up here. The bright blossoms of the tree were smiling at her, nodding, enticing.

With one last deep breath she closed her eyes and jumped.

***

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