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Gella knew how to move quietly through the palace on Eiram. She was especially stealthy tonight, wearing only a thin robe tied around her waist with a deep purple slip underneath. Her feet were bare to the polished inlaid shell floors and the force was, in this as in all things, her ally.
Gella extended her understanding. She felt the palace staff beginning to relax in the floors below, the guards making their patrols, even the dowager queens dozing off in their own wing. No one would cross her path tonight.
It wouldn’t be much longer until she would have a hand to hold through these nightly journeys, if the owner of that hand continued to behave himself in prison. She missed him, and tiptoed on.
———
The king and monarch of the unified Eiram and E’ronoh system were tired. Far too tired to give their favorite houseguest the welcome she deserved tonight.
Her majesty Xiri A’lbaran, monarch of E’ronoh and queen of Eiram, applied her nightly moisturizer hastily. Clearly she didn’t want to be caught in the middle of her admittedly elaborate skincare routine when her darling Gella arrived.
Of course, Phan-tu Zenn, her king and consort, noticed. He came up behind her as she sat at her vanity and dropped a kiss to her hair. “Gella will still love you even if she finds you mid-serum application, Xee.”
Xiri met his eyes in her mirror and continued applying her night serum.
He tried to stifle a yawn with his fist.
“I don’t like wasting our time with her," Xiri said.
“Can any time spent with her really be wasted?” He nudged Xiri’s robe off her shoulders until all the was left on each shoulder was a thin negligee strap. He reached over Xiri’s shoulder and dispensed a little massage oil onto his hands. He rubbed them together, then brought them to his wife’s shoulders. He massaged them lazily. He moved up to her neck and felt the moment his battle ready bride relaxed under his fingertips.
“I want to make the most of the time we have with her. She could hear the force calling her away tomorrow for all we know.”
Phan-tu nodded soberly. That was the awful truth of loving someone who served a higher purpose. He—the fool—loved two such someones. Someday it might be three.
He eased the pressure on Xiri’s shoulders. She handed him a towel and he dabbed excess oil from her skin before wiping his hands. He turned away, and his eyes found his favorite portion of the floor in the royal bedchamber: the central circle of an intricate mandala of shells. He sat on the settee at the end of their enormous bed and tried very hard not to nod off while he waited.
———
Gella slipped into an alcove and behind the statue of an aquatic animal of some kind. It had a long tail with sharply pointed fins and a judgmental humanoid face that vaguely reminded her of Char-Ryl-Roy. She wondered if this was supposed to serve as a deterrent.
The staircase built into the base of the statue was hidden from all angles other than directly behind the statue. Down she went. The passage was dark and smelled of algae, but that did not deter her either. She followed it to its end where the passage curved upwards in a vertical tunnel. She climbed the metal ladder rungs hammered into the sandstone at consistent intervals. The last rung was not a rung at all, but a handle directly above Gella’s head. She gripped it and twisted 90 degrees. A keypad protruded from the wall beside her and glowed to life. With a small, involuntary smile, she entered the sequence of her own name day.
The sound of old, inefficient thrusters greeted her, then a halo of light around the edge of the hatch—an eclipse all her own—as it opened and a warm brown hand extended to pull her into the royal chambers.
———
Phan-tu jumped up when he heard the telltale click of the trapdoor concealed under the heart of the bedroom floor. As soon as the hatch was clear, he helped Gella Nattai, Jedi Wayseeker, into the glow of his and Xiri’s happiness.
He cradled her face between his palms and looked at her. His smile felt too wide but hers did too, stretched beneath the heels of his hands. His arms encased her torso and he lifted her off the ground. He buried his face in the delicate curve of her neck.
“Welcome home, angel.” He murmured into her skin.
She squeezed him back and he resisted the urge to stutter a grunt. Sometimes Gella forgot her own strength. Phan-tu didn’t mind.
A hand touched the middle of his back. Xiri. He lowered Gella to the ground and stepped aside. His wife stepped into Gella’s arms. She tilted Gella’s chin up and brought their foreheads together.
“Goddess...” Xiri breathed. Gella blushed to the tips of her ears. “It is so good to have you near again.”
Gella kissed her then, just as simple as tilting her head back further and brushing her lips to Xiri’s.
Phan-tu about melted, but instead he yawned.
He closed his mouth and opened his eyes to a queen and a Jedi scowling at him.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry! It’s just the training I’ve been doing at the military academy to prepare for my rite has been… a lot.”
Xiri softened. “I know, love.” She cradled Gella to her chest, and Gella nuzzled closer.
“I’m afraid I’m going to be exceptionally boring tonight,” he sighed. “I just want to sleep.”
Gella groaned. “Praise the light!”
“Gella?” Xiri pulled back to look at her.
“I just wrapped up a week on Kashyyyk holding back wildfires. I’m asleep on my feet.”
Xiri laughed and pressed a kiss to Gella’s hair not unlike the one Phan-tu had given Xiri mere moments ago. “Then let’s go to bed.” The queen bent and scooped the Jedi into her arms.
———
Gella draped her arms over Xiri’s shoulders and kissed her. She existed in the moment. How many beings in the galaxy have been literally swept off their feet by a queen?
She hadn’t known what it was to be held until Xiri and Phan-tu had showed her.
Gella heard Phan-tu all but collapse into bed with the rustle of luxurious linens. When Xiri sat Gella on the edge of the bed, she realized the rustling was more than Phan-tu getting under the covers himself. He had pulled the covers back on Xiri’s side of the bed too.
Xiri touched Gella’s warm face, but her eyes quickly fell to Gella’s robe. She tugged on the sash.
“This is new,” Xiri said, inspecting the iridescent silk as it slid from tan shoulders. “Shimmersilk?”
“A gift.” Gella shrugged.
Xiri smirked. “From anyone we know?”
“Rhymes with Paxel Braylark?” Phan-tu said, his eyes half-shut and his voice half-muffled in his pillow.
Gella looked over her shoulder at him and felt a blush bloom across her cheeks.
“You’re so pretty when you blush,” he sighed. He was obviously enjoying the even darker shade she turned due to his words.
“He’s right,” Xiri said. Gella turned back to her, and Xiri kissed her again, sweet, inevitable, like the rush of a wave to shore. And like a wave, Xiri pulled back. “I’ll just be a moment more, treasure. I need to braid my hair.”
“I can braid it for you.” Gella offered, toying with a strand of Xiri’s shiny auburn hair.
Xiri laughed.
“I love you, but no.” Xiri said. “Your talents lie elsewhere, Gella.” She laughed again, and it must have been because of the scowl Gella felt twisting her face. “Get comfortable. I’ll only be a minute.”
———
Phan-tu felt Gella lie down with far too much mattress between them. He reached for her and pulled her in, tucking her body into the curve of his. He loved that Gella let him. “Stars, we missed you.” He whispered into her hair. She nuzzled closer and sighed adorably. Phan-tu breathed in the scent of her: clean, rich, but with a lingering note of wroshyr smoke clinging to her hair.
“Unfair,” Gella whined after a minute or so.
“Hm?” Phan-tu asked.
“Xee.” She said.
Phan-tu lifted his head and opened one eye. Then he opened both eyes.
Xiri had shed her robe and was walking their way, clad in a blood red negligee with tantalizingly sheer lace for a bodice and flowing silk for a skirt that fell below her knee but sported a maddeningly high slit.
Phan-tu whistled. “Gods... You’ve been holding out on me.”
“No, I’ve been saving something special for Gella.” She propped her bare knee on the edge of the bed through the slit of her skirt. “I can sleep naked if you prefer.”
“No!” Gella said at the same time Phan-tu said “Well…” with no shortage of interest.
Xiri laughed. It sent pleasant pinpricks up Phan-tu’s arms and a smile to his lips. He would never tire of hearing his wife’s laughter.
She sighed away the last of her laughter climbed into bed next to Gella. “Sleep now, both of you.”
Gella pulled Xiri in. Phan-tu felt their bodies fit together. Xiri’s leg threaded through Gella’s and tangled with his. He brought his hand out from between two beloved bodies to Xiri’s side so he could cradle them both.
“You missed some of your hair, majesty.” Gella whispered.
“Liar.” His queen whispered back. “You just wanted to touch my face.”
“Maybe so.” Gella admitted.
Phan-tu didn’t know if those were the last whispers exchanged by the women he loved, but that was the last he heard as he drifted off to sleep with more love than he had ever imagined spilling from between his sheets.