Star Wars fic: "Queen's Gambit" (12: Stars, Hide Your Fires)

[bedlamsbard]

Queen's Gambit (118775 words) by bedlamsbard
Chapters: 13/?
Fandom: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Author Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Characters: Padmé Amidala, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Anakin Skywalker, Dooku (Star Wars), Palpatine | Darth Sidious, Mace Windu, Yoda, Bail Organa
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Parallel Universes
Series: Part 2 of Ouroboros
Summary:

Civil war threatens the galaxy. Hundreds of star systems have declared their intentions to leave the Republic and form a Confederacy of Independent Systems.

In the hopes of securing a quick peace, the Jedi Council has dispatched two Jedi to capture or kill the leaders of the separatist movement, Queen Amidala of Naboo and her lover, the former Jedi Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Into this period of conflict have come four refugees from another universe, fleeing a devastating massacre triggered by the death of Supreme Chancellor Palpatine, secretly the Sith lord Darth Sidious, at the hands of Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker…

*

Padmé worked a hand free from the quilt to push her hair back from her face. “What if I told him?” she asked, slightly mollified by his tone. “What if I did tell him everything?”

“Then you’d be dead,” Anakin said. He mirrored Obi-Wan’s apologetic gesture when Padmé gave him a sharp look, ducking his head slightly. “Or at least he would have taken the Ouroboros. He can tell that you’re not Force-sensitive; he wouldn’t have had any problem taking it from you if he knew you had it.”

They all looked at the coffee table, where the Ouroboros was sitting on top of several layers of silk scarves Padmé had found in her closet. According to Anakin and Obi-Wan, it was quiescent to their Jedi senses, essentially drained of power and nothing more than a particularly ugly piece of jewelry. Something about it still made Padmé shudder to look at, though she couldn’t put her finger on what precisely that was.

“If he’d known he would have taken it,” Anakin said again.

Obi-Wan reached out, careful not to let his bare skin touch the bracelet, and flipped a fold of the silk scarf over the Ouroboros. He and Anakin relaxed minutely as soon as it was out of sight, wrapped in insulating layers of silk. Padmé didn’t know what it was the blasted thing did to them, but they had both gone on edge as soon as Padmé had brought it out to make sure she still had it.

“Obi-Wan,” Padmé said reluctantly, and saw him look up. “Can you…go into my head? Find out if I told him anything?”