Things My Daughter Should Know After I've Died
"I spent my whole life walking
and hid such colourful wings."
—Things my son should know after I've died, Brian Trimboli
The too-close sun beat down on the moon's shields until the surface was as hot and sticky as a sauna. Sweat poured down Shmi Skywalker's temples and forehead, soaking her underarms and creating unsightly damp patches on her sheer, layered gold sari. Those patches were visible as she held up the heavy tray filled with drinks and skilfully manoeuvred through the crowd of customers. The cafe where she worked was one of the nicer ones, and salacious encounters with drunken spice miners were thankfully few, but the snobbery practised by minor bank clerks and receptionists who earned little more than Shmi did was only slightly better. Stoically, the waitress endured their superior airs, taking orders with a tired smile.
"Quite a crowd today," a new, Twi'lek waitress said as Shmi stole back into the kitchen.
"The lunchers are staying longer than usual," Shmi agreed. Languidly, she slipped the blue scarf from her head and wiped the sweat from her brow.
"And they're not even tipping," the green-skinned girl grumbled.
Shmi nodded with some consternation. Even with tips, she made barely enough credits to keep her little room in the local boarding house. Without tips, it was going to be a very difficult week. Shmi thought consolingly of the upcoming spicers convention and the influx of customers it would bring, as well as the pay packet she was due today.
"Skywalker! Cahiya! Get back on the floor!"
The head cook and owner scream at them, sweat dripping from his face as he bent over the flaming grill. Shmi exchanged a wry glance with Cahiya before picking up her platters and heading back out. Checking on drinks and taking new orders, the waitress barely saw the cafe's double doors swing open, but she felt a new wave of sticky heat sweep in to thicken the muggy cloud already hanging in the air. Slowly straightening up, Shmi placed her empty tray on the bar and stretched her aching back while she took in the new arrival with surprise.
The newest customer was a petite woman swathed in what must have been the richest clothes to have ever walked through the cafe doors. Flared, purple velvet skirts liberally embroidered with what looked like real silver tapered into a wine-coloured corset laced up so tightly that the woman's small breasts were set off to magnificent effect. Her face, while by no means classically beautiful, was impressive: dramatic cheekbones, a narrow, predatory nose, and pale blue eyes. Her high forehead was topped by a striking widow's peak of golden-red hair pulled up into a sweeping chignon. That shining hair was liberally highlighted by dignified white streaks.
Staring at this woman who looked like a painting and carried herself like a queen, Shmi swiped her swollen red hands on her sari and glanced at the mirror behind the bar to examine her tired face.
The strange woman settled herself into a remote table that just happened to be in Shmi's assigned area, where she rearranged her skirt into a graceful sweep before scrolling through the digital menu. The waitress allowed a minute or two to pass, giving the new customer time to consider her options, before walking to the table.
Looking down at the older woman, Shmi admired her small, delicate hands, their meticulous movements charming the waitress's soft brown eyes.
"Greetings, Lady," Shmi said softly. "May I offer you a refreshment?"
The woman smiled: a slight, soft curving of her delicate lips that animated her stern face. There were hardly any wrinkles cutting through that porcelain skin, and Shmi realized that the stranger was younger than she had thought, probably not much more than forty.
"Iced black berry tisane, thank you."
Shmi offered a slight bow and glided off to fulfill the order. The pace in the café was slowing as the local lunch crowd began to file back to the banks and offices, and as the dense pack of bodies thinned out, the air cooled slightly. Shmi stopped to gratefully gulp down a tall glass of water. She picked up the strange woman's drink on her way back out. The customer had pulled a palm computer from her lace-embroidered bag and was busy examining the screen, but she put it down and smiled when Shmi set the slim, frosted glass in front of her.
"Thank you, my dear," the woman murmured.
Her voice was musical, Core-cultured; her tone strangely maternal in a fashion that made Shmi feel younger than her thirty-one Standards. The waitress blushed and offered a tentative smile to her customer. She was answered by an even deeper smile, a strangely conspiratorial expression that tempted Shmi to have friendly feelings for her.
The moment was broken as the small computer emitted a beep, and the woman's eyes flickered down to examine it.
"I may take a break from business, but business never takes a break from me," she quipped.
"Are you here for the spice mining summit?" Shmi asked, surprising herself with her boldness. The annual spicers convention wasn't for another two weeks, but she couldn’t think of another reason for such a glamorous figure to visit the moon.
"Hardly. I'm not interested in narcotics. I'm here on something of a research mission...Shmi." The lady glanced at the waitress's name plate.
"I apologise for my boldness," Shmi rushed to say. "Would you like to order a lunch? We have a shell-fish soup made with local species from the planet--."
"Calm yourself," the woman soothed. "I am not about to report you for asking a simple question. My name is Anyel. It does not seem quite fair that I should know your name, and you should not know mine."
"My apologies, Lady Anyel," Shmi repeated, with another slight bow.
Anyel’s laugh was slow and rich. "Simply Anyel will do. Don't you think?"
"I'm not sure that it’s proper.”
"Sometimes what is proper is not what is right," Anyel said. She gave a slow shrug of her shockingly pale, bared shoulders. "I would appreciate it if you would call me by my name. I feel as though we know each other. Do you agree?”
Even more confused, Shmi felt compelled to move closer to her odd customer.
"I'll have the soup," Anyel ordered, soft-voiced.
The waitress moved in a fog, typing the order into her tablet to send it to the kitchens before she drifted away from the table. Back in the kitchens, it seemed to Shmi as though a great bubble had been popped, whose sudden absence let in the cook's shouting and the harsh scent of grease. Passing by the stoves, Shmi picked up the fragrant pink soup that was already waiting for her. Quickly, she delivered the soup, holding it tightly so as not to betray the tremor in her hands. The waitress suddenly felt as wary of this magnificent woman as she was drawn to her. Even with her gaze demurely pointed to the ground, Shmi felt Anyel watching her. Once every few minutes, the waitress would sneak a glance at the remote table, and never once did she catch the lady looking, yet Shmi trusted her instincts, and she knew that those steady blue eyes were fixed to her back.
It was therefore with some surprise and disappointment that she noticed her customer stand and pay her bill at the bar. Anyel seemed to have completely forgotten Shmi, and why should she not? The insignificant Miss Skywalker was only a waitress, the daughter of equally insignificant spice miners who had died young, as so many of their kind did.
The rest of the day passed with painful slowness. The work felt duller than usual, the customers more ordinary and uninteresting in the rich woman's wake. The high point of Shmi's shift came when the bar informed her that Anyel had left her a substantial tip, double the bill. It would be enough to ease her through the rest of the week, once the rent was paid.
When Shmi's ten hour shift finally ended, she picked up her pay packet and tucked it securely into her bag, then changed into her drab street clothing. She finished by wrapped an ancient orange scarf around her lush brown hair— her one truly beautiful feature, she believed, concealed by the dictates of cultural fashion.
Though cooler than the mid-day swelter, the night remained swathed in roving clouds of smoke and smog, and Shmi pulled the tail of her scarf over her mouth. She held it there until she could fumble of her pocket for a face mask, then ducked her head and kept to the shadows. She was anxious to avoid the attention of the drunken labourers who came stumbling out of the pubs lining the main drag. They were raucous bars which only became more numerous as the young waitress approached the working class neighbourhood of her boarding house.
Shmi hesitated at the third to last intersection, noting that the street lights there had been destroyed. Hundreds of fragments of glass were strewn across the road, glinting in a way that looked deceptively magical against the gargantuan shadow of the planet and the halo of more distant street lamps.
Across the street, the aurora receded into sinister shadows, and Shmi squinted to make out any passers-by. A moment passed as she held her breath, hearing and seeing nothing but far away echoes of adult laughter. By this hour there were no children in the streets. Life went on here as it went on everywhere else, and offspring were plentiful, but on a moon plagued by slavers, children were kept safely locked behind doors after dark.
Just as Shmi was about to take a step out into the street, a large hovercraft whizzed by, a human male hanging out the back, screaming at the top of his lungs.
"Woooooooooooo! Hey baby!"
The waitress jumped back onto the pavement. When the sound of the speeder receded into nothingness, the woman skittered across the street. She jogged lightly, trying to make it to the next well-lit crosswalk without further incident. With her head down again, she did not notice the man who appeared in front of her until it was too late.
"Hey, can I bum a credit?" The large human crowded close to her. Too close.
Shmi clutched her handbag to her chest. "I really don't have much to spare. I need to pay my rent tomorrow." Too lately, she realized that she should not have suggested that she was carrying a large sum of credits.
"Just one or two would be great. I'm really strapped."
The pragmatic part of her wanted to decline, but knowing how many people had far less to their name than she did, Shmi nodded reluctantly and slowly opened up her bag. She was horrified when the man reached out to snatch the purse from her hands. Only her habitually tight grip prevented the thief from succeeding.
"Give me the bag or you die!" The man pulled a vibro-blade from his back pocket.
Shmi took off running. She was terrified to hear the pounding footsteps of her pursuer catching up with her. Her skirts caught between her legs, and she stumbled, landing hard and skinning her hands on the rough pavement. A pained yelp escaped her, and she twisted around to stand up again, only to find her attacker looming over her with a grin that was part fury, part triumph.
"Shoulda given me the money, slut. Now you're really gonna get it."
Shmi blanched at the implication, but kept her fear as tightly reigned as she could. Begging or screaming would not help her.
He reached down and ripped the air mask from her face. "Not too bad," the man said, as if she were a piece of meat he was thinking of buying.
"I have my pay chip and thirty loose credits in my bag. Please take them all," she said with only a slight quaver in her voice.
"Oh, I'm gonna take 'em all; don't you worry. But I'm gonna take something' else, too.”
"I think not."
A cool voice sounded from behind the thief. The timbre was so dark and deep that it was almost sexless, but Shmi thought that the speaker might be female. The man spun around, and the waitress quickly scrambled away.
The thief scowled. "Get outta here or I'll do you, too!"
Shmi stood up in time to see a slight, hooded form advance on the attacker. One gloved hand emerged from the enveloping black cloak, stabbing at the air menacingly.
"You will leave now." Impossibly, the voice dropped into an even lower register, birthing a hollow growl that sent terrified shivers through Shmi's entire body.
"Who are you?" The man’s aggressive posture failed to conceal his growing wariness.
"Leave now, and you will not find out. Pray to your gods that you never do."
A growing air of peril saturated the isolated street, and outside of the man's heavy, harsh breathing, Shmi could hear nothing-not the zooming engines of hovercrafts; not the yowls of combative house pets set loose in the night; not even so much as the scurrying of vermin. Increasingly alarmed, Shmi wanted to leave; wanted to run, but she found her feet rooted to the ground.
"Leave now.” The small, cloaked figure repeated the warning. The thief backed away slowly, keeping his eyes on the interloper, as if the stranger were a wild animal that might spring if he showed it his back. Only when he reached the corner of the intersection did he finally turn and run. Pounding, erratic footsteps quickly faded away.
The presence of the newcomer was still heavy, but the menace had vanished, and when Shmi forced herself to turn, she was astonished to see Anyel's pale blue eyes regarding her.
"You!"
Anyel chuckled. “I apologise for the ruse, but I expect that I appeared more menacing looking as though I were a Sith out of legend, rather than simply a poor, weak woman."
"I do not believe that you have ever been a 'poor, weak woman',” the waitress said. She regarded the other female with level eyes.
"You are a very perceptive woman, Shmi. And a very intelligent one, I expect. What are you doing on this gods-forsaken moon? You deserve better than this."
"I was born here," Shmi answered simply.
Anyel’s face firmed with disapproval. "Your birth does not determine your fate. You have the capacity to move beyond this squalor."
"How? I am a thirty-one-year-old waitress who will soon be thirty-two. I have no education and no training. I have no money. I was born here, and I will very likely die here. That is the way of the world. The way of my world."
A cloud of fury passed over Anyel, again transforming her into something unearthly and terrible, and Shmi flinched back in the face of that power. The other woman must have noticed, because she visibly cloaked her anger before advancing to grasp Shmi's arm.
"Come with me!" Anyel demanded.
"Come with you where?" Shmi asked slowly.
Anyel shook her head and tugged on Shmi's arm. Mystified but fascinated, the waitress followed her. She kept pace with the wealthy woman as they wound their way outside of the city core and then into the star-soaked plain that bordered the moon’s lone metropolis. Stepping onto the immense field of dust, Shmi caught her breath at the display she so rarely saw.
"It's very quiet here, isn't it?" Anyel asked.
"Yes," Shmi whispered. She was reluctant to infringe on that quiet.
"Nothing like that absurdly self-important nest of criminals," Anyel scoffed. "That place so unashamed of its corruption that it hosts a spice summit. This- this," she swept her hands through the air, indicating the stars, the enveloping dark, "is the gateway to the universe. There are a million worlds in the galaxy, and a million lives to live on every one of those worlds. Why would you stay here when you could have everything?"
Shmi hesitated, reluctant to give the same answer that she had the first time. She searched for something that applied not simply to every poor man and woman in the city, but only to herself. She suspected that Anyel would not like her answer.
"I do not need more.”
"Do not need more?"
Shmi looked at the stars. "I am not ambitious, Lady Anyel. I need only to provide for myself, and my joys are as many here working in a simple cafe as they would be if I lived in a palace. I am content."
"And if you had to provide for more than just yourself?"
Shmi caught her breath. "What do you mean?"
"Do not play coy, Shmi. If you had a child."
The waitress clutched her hands over her slim stomach and blinked rapidly before turning to Anyel to tell her what she had never told another; moreover, she told it with a relieved alacrity that spoke of fourteen years of agonised silence.
"I cannot have children. When I was younger, much younger, I fell in love with a boy my own age. We had little money-he was one of the miners-but we were happy. I was already working at the café, and we saved up enough to rent a flat together. We would eat evening meals together before going dancing in one of the halls. We danced almost every night. When the halls closed, we would go back home to talk and make love, and hold each other through the night. I think we both believed that it would last forever."
Anyel placed a sheltering arm over Shmi's shoulder, and Shmi leaned into that arm as though they had been friends for years.
"What happened?" the older woman asked gently.
"I became pregnant. I believe he was happy, and so was I. Instead of going dancing after work, we went to the second-hand market to buy baby clothes, a crib, other things. We should have known better than to get our hopes up, but we were only seventeen. What seventeen-year-old Humans know better?"
Shmi laughed quietly, and Anyel joined her, both women exchanging knowing expressions.
"Our joy lasted two months," Shmi sighed.
"Miscarriage?"
"Yes."
They stopped talking as a ship passed, making a tremendous noise as it moved closer to the moon. Only when it landed did Shmi speak again.
"We were devastated, of course, but it wasn't the end of the galaxy. We thought…if I got pregnant once, it could happen again. So we tried. For a year, we tried, and nothing happened. Finally we decided to dig into the credits we'd saved up for when the baby came, and I took a trip to the hospital. They did tests… Internal scarring from the miscarriage. I could never have a baby. Can never have a baby."
"Do you still want one?" Anyel whispered in her ear.
"I suppose I could adopt someday. There are plenty of children who lose their parents here, and it would be better than another one going to the slavers."
"That isn't what I ask. I asked it you still want a child of your own."
Betrayed, Shmi lifted the arm from her shoulder and laid it back at Anyel's side. "I just told you that I can't have children."
Anyel stepped around to face Shmi directly. She was wearing was wearing a sly smile.
"What if I could make it possible?"
"Are you a doctor?" Shmi asked, puzzled.
"No, not a doctor. I am… a researcher of sorts. My teacher was a biologist. I don't claim to understand the entirety of his work, but the miracle he discovered has no boundaries. It does not stop at the threshold of petty human weakness. I say that I can give you a child, and I can."
"Why me? I mean, is it dangerous? Has it been tested?"
The face of her companion moved in even more closely to Shmi's own. Her voice dropped to a whisper so minuscule that it seemed she feared eavesdroppers even out on the dusty plain.
"There is a danger, Shmi Skywalker, but it is not what you think. Such a child would be more than human, greater than anything you, or even I, have ever encountered. Such a child would blaze in your womb from the moment of conception, and your dreams would burn in tandem. And that is the reason why I have chosen you. I have searched the galaxy for a woman suitable to bear this child, and now I have found her. You. I have found you."
Shmi's pulse was beating with the thrill of impossibility. Could it be? Was there really a chance?
"You know I have no money.” She looked after her feet, anticipating the inevitable rejection.
Anyel's hand slashed decisively through the air. "I am not asking for money. I have no stipulations but that you care for her well."
"Her?" Shmi looked up.
"It will be a daughter, I think. According to the research…."
"But how can you know?"
"I ask that you trust me, Shmi. Do you trust me?"
Shmi regarded the woman in front of her with complex puzzlement. In truth she should not trust her, this woman she had just met, this woman who felt so dangerous. Her intuition was screaming at her that something was wrong, but Anyel had saved her body from the man in the street, quite possibly saved her life, and Shmi had felt a bizarre attraction to the other woman from the moment she had seen her in the café.
"I trust you.” She held Anyel's gaze and silently begged her to be worthy of that trust.
A solemn smile quirked the blonde woman’s lips. "I am gratified. Come with me, then, one more time, and together we shall accomplish the impossible."
They crossed the dust plain in silence. Shmi thought of the future that she had never allowed herself to imagine, the laughing child that had disappeared from her dreams. Would she have brown hair? Brown eyes? Who would the father be? Was this miracle to be an artificial insemination? And who was this woman who seemed to offer everything, expecting nothing in return? That such immense generosity existed took Shmi's breath away and restored her faith in the benevolence of the galaxy.
At the end of the plain was a field of spaceships, mostly private transport. Anyel moved with surety to a slim, gleaming silver craft, and the hull opened as if in response to her very presence.
"My ship," she said. "Maul!"
A slight-framed Zebrak male appeared in response to her summons, bowing as both women stepped into the ship, the gangplank sealing shut behind them.
"My Lady Palpatine." Maul bowed reverently. He flicked at glance at Shmi. "This is she?"
Anyel-Lady Palpatine-nodded curtly. "Keep to the cockpit until I have need for you."
Maul bowed even more deeply and vanished, melting into the scant shadows. Shmi fiddled with her dress, suddenly questioning her own judgment. It was possible she had walked into a trap. These people could be slavers.
Anyel did not seem to notice her concern. "Maul is my loyal pilot," she explained. "Come into my cabin, Shmi. We will be more comfortable there."
The cabin was indeed comfortable. The were no chairs, but the bed Shmi tentatively sat on was firm and deliciously appointed with a thick, rich red quilt. Its satin surface was embroidered in elaborate silver designs that closely resembled the patterns covering its owner's bodice. The bulkhead above the bed was draped with a tapestry portraying some kind of battle, and the ceiling was painted with a star map.
"You see- there is Naboo," Anyel whispered, sitting down next to Shmi as she pointed to the ceiling. "My home."
Shmi had never heard of it, but it looked beautiful, and she said so.
"Thank you. I have always loved my home. There are jungles there, and great oceans of water. My family is from the mountains. The mountain people are lighter in colour than those from the valleys," she explained, as if Shmi could be familiar with either people.
Shmi admired Anyel’s pale, delicate flesh, so unlike her own labour-roughened skin.
"Beautiful," she offered again, with a clever little smile.
Anyel laughed musically, accepting the compliment with grace. "You are beautiful as well, Shmi. But why do you keep this cloth over your hair?"
Not waiting for an answer, she began to tug at the scarf, pulling it off and letting Shmi's great waterfall of brown locks fall loose down her back.
"There," Anyel whispered. "That is perfect. Now lie back." Gently, she pushed Shmi down on the bed.
"What are you doing?" Shmi asked, feeling strange.
"Magic," Anyel whispered. The mattress creaked as she laid down next to the other woman. "Relax, now, Shmi, and let it happen."
Shmi wanted to say something, to move, to stand up, but a great languor descended upon her. Her limbs had become like weights, and her eyelids slid shut. Anyel's delicate fingers touched her slightly parted lips, and Shmi breathed out sharply, only to feel the finger replaced with silky lips.
"Quiet now," Anyel whispered, and Shmi could only obey.
Senator Anyel Palpatine of Naboo rolled away from Shmi Skywalker with a gasp. Her expensive gown was drenched in sweat; her hair had fallen from its bonds. Her hands trembled violently. It took the very last of her waning strength to hit the intercom and call for Maul.
Her apprentice shortly, entering the cabin and falling to one knee. "Master."
"Get off the floor, you fool, and help me!" Palpatine snarled.
The Zabrak's intricate tattoos may have hidden his flush of embarrassment, but the senator knew Maul was mortified. The apprentice leaned over the bed and wrapped one arm around her waist, gently pulling her to her feet and offering his shoulder as support. Feverish, Palpatine hoped that Maul would not choose this moment to rise up and take her place. In that event, the Sith Master could offer little resistance. The ritual had taken more out of her than she had expected.
"You were successful, Master?" Maul asked.
"I was." Palpatine sighed rapturously. "She will bear the child."
"And her memory?"
"Wiped clean. She will not remember us. Though I almost wish that I could have allowed her to; it would make accessing the child much easier."
"Why did you not?"
Palpatine frowned at Maul. Questioning was uncharacteristic of her apprentice. Had Maul in truth been emboldened by his master's brief weakness? But looking into his eyes, she saw only reverence. Perhaps the boy was simply curious.
"She is very strong. Worthy to bear the child of prophecy. Had she been born in the Republic, she would have been a Jedi, and she would have been very suited to it. Her core is tremendously stable; she is content with very little, but she will love the child and provide well for it. She will make an excellent mother."
"Why give the child to such an emissary of the Light?" Maul asked.
"Ah, Lord Maul. The greatest darkness is born from the dying of the greatest light."
Anyel frowned pensively at the senseless woman still spread out on her bed.
"Is something wrong, Master?" Maul asked, clearly still not understanding.
Palpatine narrowed her eyes at her apprentice. "Nothing is wrong, Lord Maul. Go back to the cockpit. I need another moment to complete the ritual."
There was some doubt on Maul's face, perhaps an urge to point out that the ritual was already complete, but he followed her instruction. Palpatine swayed on her feet, unsteady from the loss of support, and sat back down on the bed. Almost wistfully, she brushed a tendril of hair back from Shmi's face.
"Nothing is free," she whispered. "Every gift comes with conditions. I will return for the child someday."
According to Lord Plagueis's research with lower forms of life, the gender of the Force-crafted offspring depended, much like a natural pregnancy, on the combination of the genes of the two parents. Metaphysical though Palpatine's contribution was, the child had taken Palpatine's genetic material, for without two distinctive parents, the offspring would be only a clone of the birthing mother. This child would be a daughter, for the child of two XX chromosome parents could not independently produce a Y. But Palpatine depended on the Force more than she trusted science, and a tentative glimpse into the future assured her that the pregnancy would produce a girl.
Firmly, the Sith Lord placed a hand on Shmi's face and reached into her mind.
"Anaka. You will call our daughter Anaka."
In the ancient Nubian tongue, Anaka meant woman warrior.
Light streamed through Shmi’s narrow window and woke her from a deep, dreamless sleep. Hunger rumbled in her stomach, and she sleepily checked her chronometre, wondering if there were still time for breakfast before her shift started. Her eyes fell on the time, and she leapt out of the bed. She was three hours late!
She had one arm inside of her sari and another dragging on a sock when she realized that it was her day off. Shaking, she collapsed on her bed.
"Shmi!" The boarding house matron banged on the door. "I need the rent!"
"Sorry! I got home late last night! I think." She finished putting on her sari and opened the door.
"What do you mean 'you think'?" the matron demanded.
"I must have. I can't really recall how I got back."
Shmi grabbed her bag and found her pay packet next to a large handful of loose credits she couldn't remember receiving. She fumbled with the pay chip and transferred the funds to the matron's credit machine.
"Where were you?" The matron examined the screen of her machine before grunting with satisfaction.
"Just at work. I don't understand what happened," the waitress whispered. "I can't explain it."
"You must have been dosed.” The matron turned unexpectedly gentle, wrapping an arm around Shmi's shoulder. The touch felt familiar in a way Shmi could not explain, and she resisted the urge to lean into it.
"I don't think so. I don't feel sick. I might have hit my head, or maybe I was just really tired. I'm sorry that I was late with the rent."
The matron took back her arm with evident relief. "You just stay in and get some rest, now."
Shmi slowly closed the door. She took a deep breath and then walked over to the window, opening it to let in fresher air. She watched small children playing down in the street below, and a sweet ache filled her heart.
Shmi touched her empty stomach and swallowed.
"If I had a daughter," she whispered. "I'd call her Anaka."