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Padmé had never really appreciated her home planet until she spent time on Coruscant. Coruscant had its beautiful, shimmering towers and its melting pot of cultures and its comfortable modernity, but it lacked Naboo’s natural splendor. The greenery, the openness. She felt the lack of rivers and lakes most keenly.
When she’d been part of the Apprentice Legislature, her mentor had told her that any successful politician needed to be like a river: always moving forward, never stagnant, and strong. She still wasn’t sure if she fully agreed with that, but it had stuck in her head. Returning to her lakeside villa had reminded her of it.
In fact, the great expanses of grass and water were a complete novelty, after so long away from them. And in the wake of near-assassination and Cordé’s death, she appreciated the intrinsic peace they carried. It was no surprise, then, that when her sister visited the day after her and Anakin settled in, she elected for a stroll along the shoreline.
They talked, mostly about Sola’s children and husband; they avoided politics—both were painfully aware of the situation and felt no need to dwell on it for any longer than they had to. For the most part, Padmé luxuriated in the warm sunshine and the lightness of her dress, such a contrast to the artificial environment of Coruscant and the restrictive garb demanded by the Senate. Anakin followed them, hovering just out of earshot.
When they were about half an hour’s walk from the villa and had reached the very edge of the property, they paused. The boundary was marked by a narrow stream, which flowed from the base of the hill into the lake. They stopped, taking refuge in the shade of a tree next to the stream, and looked across the lake. Padmé commented on the stillness of the water, how it was as tranquil as her paintings on the walls of Theed’s palace.
“It’s perfect,” Sola agreed. The thought had elicited a distant memory, one that began to tug on Sola’s mind. “Remember when we were younger? The charms in the river?”
Padmé hummed. She didn’t remember it, not really, but she still had the charm; it was safely in her jewellery box. She’d worn it around her neck at her coronation, underneath her heavy gown. In the years since, she’d made a habit of taking it out and fiddling with it when she was struggling with something particularly tough.
The charm was part of an old Naboo tradition. There were thirty—maybe thirty-five, Padmé wasn’t quite sure—traditional charms, depicting flora and fauna and geography, as well as objects and such. Each held a myriad of meanings and interpretations, depending on the material they were crafted with and when considered in conjunction with one another. People wore them as jewellery or wove them into decor to, in theory, channel certain traits or protect themselves.
One ritual that was particularly popular was a form of divination. You would find a set of charms, which were a dime a dozen in Theed’s markets, and pick a number of them. Sometimes it was totally random, pulled out of a cloth bag; others it was more intentional, a few charms picked to symbolise potential options or outcomes. Carefully, you’d tie each to identical lengths of string, which you’d secure to something on the riverbank. Then you’d put them in a river or a canal or some form of moving water, which was supposed to represent the flow of time. Once you’d done that, you’d leave it overnight. When you returned in the morning, you would sever all but one. You’d pull that final charm from the river and that was supposed to be some kind of answer.
Typically, on their seventh birthday—odd numbers were considered lucky and seven was the age between early and middle childhood—Naboo children were led through that ritual for the first time. It was said that the charm they picked would indicate their future.
It was all nonsense, in Padmé’s opinion. On her own seventh birthday, she’d drawn the royal emblem of Naboo out of the Solleu River. Her mother later noted, with a glint in her eye, that it was a remarkable coincidence, but Padmé insisted that it was nothing more than that. Moreover, having been the governor of Theed, she knew how much it cost for the government to collect discarded charms from riverbeds, which only added to her cynicism.
She didn’t say that to Sola, of course. Ironically, it had always been her sister that had cared deeply for tradition, not her.
“We could throw some charms in now, if you wanted. You could come back and draw them out tomorrow. There’s a little river here and there’s a tree to tie the strings to. It would be easy enough.”
Padmé kept her tone neutral, even as she internally rolled her eyes. “What would I be trying to find out?”
“Whatever you wanted. Everything seems up-in-the-air at the moment—it’s difficult to know what the future could bring. I did it for myself the other day. It can be surprisingly reassuring.”
“You know, I don’t really subscribe to the idea of destiny.”
“Come on,” Sola wheedled. “That doesn’t matter.”
“Sola, please,” Padmé sighed. “This is just superstition. It’s empty.”
Sola tilted her head to one side, acknowledging her point without agreeing. “If it’s empty superstition, there’s no harm in doing it.”
There was a certain logic to that. Besides, with assassinations and political connivations afoot, some part of her did want a glimpse into the future, even if she didn’t put any stock in the methodology. Padmé hesitated, then relented. “Alright.”
From the bag slung over her shoulder, Sola withdrew a small drawstring pouch. Padmé raised a half-amused, half-trenchant eyebrow. Her sister hadn’t changed—she was still inclined to bouts of well-intentioned craftiness. “You came prepared.”
Sola, quite aware of Padmé train of thoughts, simply opened the bag and proffered it. “Always. Now, pick a handful.”
Padmé extended her hand into the pouch, almost flinching as her fingertips came into contact with the cold metal charms. She decided on five, the number that her mother always used, and withdrew them, doing her best not to overthink her choice. It was best if the person seeking answers didn’t see the selection of charms, so she kept them in her grasp, covered, and averted her eyes.
From her bag, again, Sola produced a spool of string and a pair of embroidery scissors. Taking the charms from Padmé, she set about attaching each charm to a short thread, which she then tied to the branch of the tree. She was quick, efficient.
When she was finished, she guided Padmé’s hand to the strings. Without looking, still, Padmé cast the ends of the strings—and, thus, the charms—into the stream. Her question and intent was simple: what’s in my foreseeable future?
“There,” Sola said. “Easy as anything. Just don’t forget to retrieve them.”
“I won’t,” Padmé reassured her, lips curving into an easy smile. They turned back towards the villa, moving past Anakin, and she grew a little more serious. “When you did it, what did you ask? What did you learn?”
“I asked about the future of our family: me, my children, our parents, you. I pulled out a lily.”
Padmé frowned, trying to recall her mother’s careful explanations. “Sorrow?”
“Death.” Sola corrected her, matter-of-fact. “But also virtue, prosperity, friendship, devotion… it’s never straight-forward.”
“What do you think it means?” Padmé asked, temporarily shedding her cynicism in favour of curiosity.
Shrugging, Sola answered, “I’m not sure. It was close to my wedding anniversary, so part of me thinks it could be hinting at that. A long, stable marriage. Another part of me thinks that it’s a promise that the uncertainty will soon be over and that our family’s success will continue. Pooja wants to go into politics—I can only hope she’ll be as successful as you.”
Padmé smiled at the thought of her niece following her footsteps. “I’ve got no doubts.”
She kept her promise to Sola, waking early and traipsing out to the stream. Anakin, as always, accompanied her. The early morning stillness seemed indelible, so they didn’t speak, instead remaining in their own personal reflections.
They reached the tree and Anakin paused, hanging back, to give her space and privacy. Without thinking about it, she gestured for him to stand beside her.
She gathered the five strings, the other ends still safely submerged, and transferred them to his palm. “Hold these.”
He acquiesced. Having asked Padmé about it over dinner the previous night, he watched knowingly as she deliberated over them. She’d brought a small knife along, which she turned over in one hand as she vacillated.
It doesn’t matter, she told herself, irritated. Just pick one.
She pulled one away and sliced cleanly through the rest. They fell away, the charms—and the futures they symbolised, if you believed in that sort of thing—lost to the current.
The other she pulled up, coiling the string around her hand until she had the charm in her grasp. She held it up, dangling it in front of them. The rounded metal glinted in the sunlight as Anakin squinted at it, trying and failing to figure it out. “What is that? A fruit?”
“It’s an odd one,” she admitted. “It’s a pomegranate.”
“We don’t have those on Tatooine,” Anakin said, in the bittersweet way that always accompanied mentions of his childhood. “What does it mean?”
“Well, there’s a story. A myth. It’s ancient. I’m not even sure where it’s from.”
Anakin wasn’t hesitant to voice his disbelief. “About a fruit?”
Padmé laughed. “Sort of. It’s about the god of the dead, who lives in the underworld. He falls in love with a nature goddess. There’s two versions: one, he kidnaps her and holds her hostage in the underworld and forces her to eat six pomegranate seeds, which means that she’s trapped in the underworld for six months every year; two, she’s also in love with him and chooses to eat the seeds so she can stay with him. It’s supposed to explain the seasons, because nature dies in the months that she’s in the underworld.”
Anakin looked nonplussed, brow furrowed. “So…”
“So this charm can refer to the balance of life and death, which usually means that there are endings and new beginnings in store. But it could be about love and marriage and fertility as well.” Padmé tried not to think about the significance of the fact that it was Anakin who was with her, when she was talking of the future and of love and marriage and fertility.
“They’re all a type of new beginning, aren’t they?”
“Yes. It’s just a question of what’s sacrificed for those beginnings. As I said… it’s about balance.”
Anakin, sensing that her mind was slipping into bleak possibilities, sought to break the gravity that had arisen. He shifted backwards, cocked an eyebrow. “Nothing can be straight-forward, I guess.”
“Absolutely not,” Padmé replied lightly, smiling at him, noting the way that his eyes had never left her during their whole conversation. “Where would the fun be in that?”