( act one  ⎯  joy of the kingdom )
the phantom menace ✶ 32 BBY ✶ 5495 Era IV

     In Zeisan R'yvnia's perspective of her universe, she was a planet.  Hers was small and irrelevant amongst the rest, but she liked to think that she would always be the red sun's favorite ⎯ wise, bright, and so beautiful it was almost magical, her mother ⎯ no matter how far from her she spinned and no matter how false her belief actually was.

    (Arwen and Adnéat belonged to the Vale, her twin sisters belonged to the crown, and little Zyaire to the southern sea. But Zeisan would always be hers.)

     Now, her world spun without purpose in a system with no room for warmth, completely dark and lonely: Orbiting a dead star.

     Atheia used to tell her the warmth in her smile could melt away the cruel winter snow with ease;  That, whenever the Great Night was to come, the sparkle in her golden eyes could bring Kas Attara more light than Elarion ever had.  But that light ⎯ that sparkle of happiness ⎯ had found no real reason to appear since the night her mother joined the ancestors under the Warden's warm mantle.

     (The light in her eyes was burning out, like the last withering stars being admired from the lands in exile.)

     Like everything else, her fear had begun when the resurrection of Alcmene brought death to Elarion once again:  The sunset the Daughters brought spilled on the horizon as the ichor light of the Son melted into the mulberry starry night sky. The guards stepped back as the Queen and her princesses entered the palace, and in excitement and homesickness after a long day of boring court meetings on the cloudy and frigid floating islands of Arxia, Zeisan ran up the stairs at a brisk pace. The delicate white fabrics of her dress danced behind her, sliding between her legs and under her clicking yellow sandals as she skipped, causing her to slip. 

     Her open hands trembled against the spotless crystal of the stairway, reflecting indigo, magenta and ultra-violet, staining her reflection as her arms threatened to let go and slam her face back into the floor. Golden droplets of blood spilling from her nose the only thing that stood out in her sight.

     (She was disappointed at herself for not having reacted fast enough, how was she to become a sunspear if she couldn't even stop herself from slipping?)

     Before she could finish assessing the damage her fall had caused in her mirror image, two of her mother's handmaidens (Aemma and Nedelya, she recognized) had already grabbed her by the arms and returned her to her feet, rushing to get her some aid. A knowing sigh escaped her mother's mouth as she followed her daughters' trail from far behind from among the worried gasps and nigging about her injuries ⎯ she had told her to quit running but the girl didn't mind her warning.

     Zeisan didn't cry, however, the pain barely stung. Instead, she dragged her arms back and stopped the Ladies, turning her head back and smiling as wide as she could for her sister to take a good look at her bloody gums. "Mira! How bad is it?"

     Sulan let a horrified scream escape her throat. "Zeisan, that's disgusting!" She exclaimed as she picked up the fabrics of her dress before stepping back and hiding behind her mother, almost gagging.

     "Aw, come on, don't be a baby." Zeisan's laughter became wider as she freed herself from the grip of the handmaidens and ran back down the stairs to keep tormenting her sister.

     "Stop it!" Sulan shrieked. Her pale hands raised right in front of her, pushing her younger sister's forehead to keep her away however she could. From the expression on her face, it was evident that she was on the verge of tears.

     Zeisan's laughter grew louder as Sulan became more irritated. The amount of blood dripping from her mouth and nose getting larger and larger. "I just want a hug." Their mother being the only thing stopping her from getting it.

     "Stay away from me!"

     "That is sufficient." Atheia, tired of the spectacle, grabbed Zeisan by the collar of her dress and dragged her back into the hands of her Ladies. "Apologize to your sister."

     "Rezdōs." She muttered. Atheia didn't have to be the Oracle to notice the faint genuineness threaded in her apology.

     Zeisan kept giggling as Aemma and Nedelya turned her back around, as unsubtle as ever.

     "Stop laughing!" Sulan scolded.

     "I'm not!"

     The elder sister left her hiding spot behind the Queen's back to subtly follow the younger's steps ⎯ fast enough not to leave Zeisan's words hanging, but careful enough as to not repeat her embarrassing fall ⎯ taking advantage of her high raised arms to give her a jab in the side.

     "Nirá! Ydágon esmos nirá!" Zeisan screeched as Sulan laughed. "That's foul play!"

     She kicked and shook in an attempt to keep her sister away as she continued to try to tickle her.  Zeisan's chuckles now only reflected her frustration at not being able to escape the knights' grip or Sulan's hands ⎯ who now was the one enjoying having the last laugh. Their screams and banter almost drowned out the noise of the unusual rustlings that had been heard beyond the bushes of the nearby forest.

     The Queen turned back at the sounds and the warnings. "Ykio, koryen." She asked the princesses.

     The girls stopped as the surrounding voices and murmurs became increasingly louder and the ambience heavier, the guards gradually moving away from the far corners of the steps to closely surround the Queen while others approached the forest to find the source of the unusual sounds.

     "Vyta audchíres?"  Said one of the Sunspears standing a couple of steps below her.

     Zeisan perked her head up, furrowing her eyebrows in confusion and squinting her eyes in a fruitless attempt to see more clearly: Nothing. She wasn't surprised that there were strange sounds ringing out from beyond the plumwood trunks in the slightest, and she didn't understand why everyone else seemed to want to make a show out of it. They weren't called 'the Whispering Woods' for nothing.

     "May I go see?" The princess looked at one of the maids, the one holding her left arm. She hoped all the sweetness channeled in her amber eyes would do something to help her case.

     But Lady Aemma didn't subdue. "Nirá, asqelya." She replied gently. "Let's clean your face first, shall we?"

     Murmurs turn to screams and the crunching of dry leaves turn into uproar as Zeisan is dragged to the top of the stairway.  She recognized Sulan's troubled voice behind her ⎯ asking something she cannot make out from the distance ⎯ but before she can turn back to the scene and find out for herself, her mother's handmaidens force her to run inside.

     "Senevén, senevén." Atheia hurried Sulan before following behind her.

     Guards shout and order each other, the sounds overlap and distinguishing them becomes almost impossible as she is taken deeper into the palace's hallways.  Zeisan, confused, continued trying to turn her head back and run outside; She pleaded for her mother as she tried to pull her arms to get rid of the grip, but they turned her face back forward sternly and their grips on her arms and wrists tightened at her defiance. They forced her head down as they ran and after a couple of turns of being unable to see anything except the marble floor and the blood drops falling on her feet, the maids let her go as her father entered the scene.

     "Laekarē irve?"  The King asked as he took his daughter into his arms, hugging her tightly before guiding her towards the Aerdeni waiting to assist her injuries.

     "Mamá ifkto esqriot?"

     All around her, the talking never seemed to cease.  Everyone tried to comfort her how they could, assuring her that she would be fine, that everything would be fine; Through her blurry eyes, Zeisan could see her father's dimly lit face full of guilt and worry as she combed her hair with his hand, reassuring and calming.  Fear creeps in and the girl fights the urge to weep as she slowly realizes everything is not actually okay. It is the first time in her life that she wants her mother by her side but she is not there.

     And she will never be there again.

     The funeral had lasted several serdons and Zeisan still didn't feel like she had enough time to properly grieve. She knew it would have been held for even longer hadn't it been for the Maoran's interruption. Her curiosity stayed unsatisfied and her questions unanswered as the movements dragged on; She would probably never find out what really happened to her mother with certainty, she would probably never know how far the true repercussions of the invasion went. So far, Artoo's beeping had been her only comfort.

     Beneath the thin pink silk fabrics of her mourning dress and with her mother's body hidden inside the white and gold casket in front of her, Zeisan realized that she doesn't really know what to expect from the future. It had never been set in stone.

     "Do not weep." Arwen enjoined. "Never where they can see."

     Zeisan could not quite understand the resentment Arwen seemed to hold for anyone who wasn't her kin ⎯ anyone who wasn't her, really ⎯ but she doesn't share that insecurity. She doesn't blame her people for her pain because she doesn't believe do not seek to hurt them or any opportunity to do so ⎯ they had loved Atheia too. Zeisan knows they'll understand her grief, and she holds pride in her tears of bereavement.

     Her mother was the lighthouse that illuminated her path throughout the stormy ocean ⎯ her compass, the person that always knew what to do and what she needed, the bright red sun her planet orbited around (She had loved her so much and she would love her forever, even in death).  Zeisan knows that her mother embraces her tenderly from the afterlife, but her heart still aches with sadness when she remembers she'll never listen to her singing whenever the thundering sky would sent her into a cold sweat ⎯ her harmony had abandoned the symphony and it had become an empty tune, snapping as the orchestra broke apart; A melody too lonesome to find any comfort in.

     (Her universe had been torn in half, ripped from her arms right in front of her and she did nothing. Because what could she have done? No matter how much she thought of herself as a warrior, she wasn't one. She was a child.

     She would tear the galaxy apart to keep things the way they were, to get her mother back.)

     The bells of the Great Celestium rang throughout the Citadel in means of celebration; The smallfolk found a reason to use the light-spinning fireworks in the coronation of Queen Solaria, seventh of her name, and the defeat of the Maoran traitors, and along with the trail of glitter that the spinners let fall as they faded, confetti of violet, gold and red (the colors of House Selaehra) rained down and bathed the white cobblestone streets of Arus as if it were summer snow. The danger was over, and those who had previously found themselves mourning the death of their Queen now found themselves too busy celebrating the victory of their new one.

     (The reverberant thunder of the fireworks bring her a new world of pain. Suddenly she's shaking beneath the vermillion covers of her room again; Fear creeps in as she seeks shelter, warmth.

     Her mother comes to her like a star: Brighter than Icarys and far more tender than Elarion in summer.

     "The storms will always be on your side, byk'oraví. They could never hurt you."

     But she burns out. Like all stars do.)

     When she opens her eyes again she's back in the present. The screams all come from the children and their parents, and the ghost of that day had been almost washed away completely by the glee of the attaran people celebrating all across the Citadel; The thunderous creakings do not come from any blaster, but from the light-spinners, because the real world did not orbit around her mother and life went on for everyone.

     In the real universe, the stars above remained bright, constant.

✴︎

     The Queen stood confident right outside the temple, smiling and greeting everyone as she passed, so radiant that it seemed like ⎯ for that night, at least ⎯ the moons were committed to shining their lights on her especially;  Her hair was fully pinned in a high bun made out of braids, and sitting perfectly on her head was Solaria the Conqueror's crown ⎯ its red gems (rubies, garnets and diamonds) were the perfect match for her scarlet dress embroidered with dragon scales threaded by golden lace. Her neck seemed on the verge of breaking under the literal weight of the crown ⎯ a pretty apt metaphor, he thought.

     Having met her a little more than twenty-four hours ago, Anakin had mistaken the young queen for an angel; Curly brown hair, thin eyebrows and silky smooth tanned skin, she had danced with intrigue into Watto's store of mechanical parts, where he was made to work, and it was impossible for him to believe she was anything but godsend. And while Solaria ⎯ in all her regality and sun-bathed beauty ⎯ hadn't been notably kind, her brother, on the other hand, had been one of the few people to treat him like an actual person instead of an object to trade ever since the day his father collapsed on the concrete.

     Adnéat Erykrasí was what Anakin had imagined an older brother should— would be like: He was gentle and funny, and as wise and kind as were all the heroes in the stories his mother recited almost every night before sending him off to bed.

     The foreign boy had found a time to tell him stories of his own while he and his sister found themselves stranded on Tatooine: Several legends and myths of the very planet Anakin now stood on, and multiple personal retellings of tourneys, feasts and justs he had the fortune to witness. About his ivy-covered home in the Vale of the Thorns in Eridania (which could only be described as the near opposite of his sandstone hut), his annoying yet amusing sounding sisters and the baby girl his step-father had shipped off to one end of their world ⎯ the way he carried himself vaguely reminded him of the memory of Luke Skywalker. The stark contrast between him and the girl with cascading red-golden hair dressed in sage satins that had greeted him and Obi-Wan at the door of the royal palace, scrutinizing them intently enough for them to understand that, unlike everyone else they had encountered so far, she did not welcome them, without the need of any words of confirmation.

     "Please, do not mind her." Adnéat dismissed the Countess' attitude as he guided the padawan boy and his new master towards the quarters that would house them during their short stance on the planet. "My sister is severely allergic to fun as you may have noticed." His joke made Anakin giggle.

     Their faces were almost identical, their hair almost the same shade of orange. It made Anakin wonder how could two people so alike be so different.

     His Jedi robes seemed to have been enough for her ⎯ Lady Arwen, Obi-Wan said ⎯ to stop judging him with her eyes during Solaria VII's coronation ceremony; They weren't exactly good by her standards, but certainly better. Anakin liked the feeling of the soft cloth resting upon her skin (the first time he felt truly comfortable inside his skin in years) and he assumed the Lady of the Vale just didn't want him to run around her party in his awful worn out rags.

     Still, the soft colors of his new clothes were nothing compared to all the unique fabrics paraded by the crowd on every corner of the streets of Arus. More colors than Anakin could have ever imagined glistened all around him (Mandalore had been too gray and Tatooine too beige), never before had he had the luxury of admiring a rainbow-drenched crowd. He could only imagine how much his mother would have loved to watch the glittering firework residue cover every shade of the Yshtari party attire ⎯ she had always had a soft spot for fashion.

     As he wandered further into the heart of the Citadel, Anakin became increasingly enthralled with the way the crystal panels engraved on every single wall and the slabs on the floor ignited as if they could tell when the sun went down, (he wondered about the mechanisms; Did they use any cables to work ⎯ were all of them completely covered by the floors or was there a visible end to them that he could reach? There was so much left a mystery down to the planet's very core.) Watto had never let him even breathe near any kind of Yshtari gadget he could manage to get his hands on, but now it was all within his reach. At his fingertips, just like the rest of the galaxy was.

     He was expected to act like a Jedi now, and he was determined to be the very best the order had ever seen; However overwhelming that was proving to be despite his short time as a padawan. The last thing Anakin wanted at that moment (a celebration of victory ⎯ his victory) was for Obi-Wan to see him as nothing but a naive child. In his head, he wasn't meant to be seen fooling around and sulking about his tiredness and the dazzling effect the sounds and lights of the party seemed to have on him ⎯ so he decided to find Adnéat to help his case.

     The sound of explosions and the cheering now found themselves muted by the running water on the side paths of the stairway and the fountains behind the statues of the Conqueror and the Liberator that overlooked the Citadel. Following the idea that finding Adneát would become an increasingly easier task as the crowd thinned out the more he climbed the hill, the only redhead who crossed his sight was a girl: Richly dressed with velvets of violet and crimson, her long mahogany hair tied on a fishtail almost long enough to reach the white marble step where she admired the faraway party from.

     (Adnéat had told him about their different ocular anatomy back on Tatooine ⎯ while helping him finish his pod before the race. If the neon flush of colors had been a little too much for Anakin, he could only imagine the dizziness they would cause in a Yshtar'i.)

     "I see you only care to walk the city when you're not supposed to." The Countess' sudden scolding made him shudder. He believed it directed at him until he noticed her walk up the white marble stairs towards the girl in violet. "Whatever is your business lazing up here?"

     "My papá allowed me to step away for a minute." The girl excused herself without caring to look at her sister in front of her, emphasizing each of her words as she spoke them. Zeisan knew the loose mention of Narek would irritate Arwen.

     (Zeisan didn't think her brief escapade should be the object of her sister's fret, Countess Erykrasí always had matters more important to assist than the young princess' stunts. It had taken her a surprisingly grand total of thirteen minutes to manage to get Aemma and Nedelya off her back, and she wasn't bothering anyone from her new and ephemeral resting spot, Arwen couldn't just pretend her words of judgment were a window to her concern rather than to her jealousy, because, unfortunately for both of them, they could see right through each other. After all, Zeisan only ever did whatever she wanted from Arwen's perspective, and Arwen was nothing but a killjoy from Zeisan's.)

     "You must return to the celebration and stand by the Queen," The Lady instructed. "Do you hold no care for our family and tradition?" Anakin could've felt the growing tension between the girls from Tatooine.

     The girl in violets clicked her tongue and sighed. "Don't you have better things to do than rile a child, aodorya? Why don't you take your leave and go pester one of your friends?" The sarcastic cadence in the princess' voice seemed to easily anger the girl in greens. "Oh, that is right, you have none." She mocked, swinging her head side to side and over-exaggerating her words and gestures.

     Arwen scoffed and grimaced before looking away in contemplation. "You know I always have time for you."

     "I really wish I did, My Lady." The humor Zeisan found in her response was not reciprocated. Arwen's semblance hardened as she reached towards her sister's face to harshly pinch her nose. "Ow!"

     "Make sure you don't ruin your dress." The Countess said sharply as she picked up the fabrics of her dress to walk up the rest of the stairs. "And sit straight."

     The princess dropped her arm and adjusted her posture as her eldest sister walked away and into the palace behind her ⎯ Anakin found amusing the way she shamelessly mocked her mannerisms once she was far enough ⎯ and she quickly dropped her shoulders and threw her chin back onto her palm as soon as she was sure the Countess was out of sight; But her train of thought was stopped dead in its tracks as soon as she noticed someone else had her very same idea in wanting to escape the party's spotlight.

     Right by the golden cauldron of fire lit for the Late Queen Etheria I and towered by the white stone slab that held it, Anakin noticed the girl stare back at him almost instantly. Slightly embarrassed, the boy gave her a clumsy smile and let go of the wall he was hiding behind. "Élastas," he greeted. His pronunciation was awkward and the word was more memorized than anything else, he couldn't even remember where he had picked it up from.

     The girl glanced over her shoulder at the grand entrance before turning her head back to the boy at the foot of the stairs. Zeisan wrinkled her nose. "Éla." She addressed back, confusion showing on her gaze.

     (The boy's smile seemed warm and soft, like he genuinely wanted to share it with her and not out of duty or courtesy; The feeling it brought forward was almost unfamiliar, she wasn't sure how to respond and she wasn't sure she wanted to at all. Zeisan looked down and took her hands to twirl the rings that adorned them as she debated whether to leave or just ask him to leave her alone. She had never seen him around before and he seemed to be an outsider, from his robes, one of her sister's guests, so it didn't feel right to just tell him to get lost. So they sunk into silence.)

     The closer he got to her step, hesitantly seeking to take a better look at her face. The more confused Anakin became the heavier his neck tilted and the more his eyes squinted, he was certain he had seen her before.

     (It was her eyes. Where had he seen her eyes before?)

     Before he could figure it out, she had already ran inside the Argyum, leaving his question hanging along the raining confetti in the sharp spring breeze.

✴︎

wc:  3941

🌥️   can you tell i gave up on writing this towards the end? cause i did ☺️

🌥️   all conversation happening at the top (between sulan, atheia, zeisan and the handmaidens) goes on in linarī which is why it's in italics! i just wanted to make it clear :)

🌥️   special thanks to mandalhoerian for the super gorgeous new cover and to courscants for the beautiful gif at the bottom! 🥹 they also helped me get through my block for this chapter — ily girls and tysm 🫶

🌥️   also, the yshar'i are party people, if they have a chance to celebrate something they go big and for as long as they can 😭

✴︎

translations:

"Mira!" : Look!
"Rezdōs." : Sorry.
"Nirá! Ydágon esmos nirá!" : No! Don't do that!
"Ykio, koryen." : Girls, be quiet.
"Vyta audchíres?" : Did you hear that?
"Nirá, asqelya." : No, starling.
"Senevén, senevén." : Go up,  go up.
"Laekarē irve?": Are you hurt?
"Mamá efkto esqriot?" : Where is mom?
"Byk'oraví." : Baby crow / little crow.
"Aodorya." : Sister (endearing).
"Élastas." : Hello (formal, like saying "greetings").
"Éla." : Hello / Hi.