Star Wars fic: "Queen's Gambit" (15: Across the Stars)

[bedlamsbard]

Queen's Gambit (150352 words) by bedlamsbard
Chapters: 16/?
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…

*

She was a small, delicate-looking woman in steel-blue silk with elaborate gold embroidery. Her dark hair was fixed in elaborate twists, along with a matching headdress from which fell a long sheer veil that was gathered like a shawl beneath her breasts, long and loose enough to cover her bare arms. Her face was painted white, her lower lip marked with a swipe of gold paint, with golden lines cutting across her eyes to culminate in golden teardrops on her cheeks. She was the most beautiful woman Ani had ever seen, as beautiful as the angels on the moons of Iego, and he fell in love instantly.

She was also the Queen of Naboo, which he realized because he wasn’t an idiot and he occasionally did pay attention to the HoloNet, but she was a hell of a lot more impressive in the flesh.

He felt his mouth work silently for a few moments, his brain trying to come up with something witty to say, because his immediate reaction was to fall to his knees and declare his undying devotion. Eventually, he managed to say, “Your Royal Highness,” and then stopped, because he couldn’t think of anything more coherent

Queen Amidala of Naboo considered him with her head tilted slightly to one side, her drop earrings swaying with the gesture. Her handmaidens, half a dozen women in long silver and blue hooded cloaks, looked at him with expressions that ranged from curiosity to animosity. Ani barely registered them, because the Queen seemed to overshadow everything else around her; Ani looked at her and forgot that the rest of the galaxy existed.

“Captain Anakin Skywalker,” she said. “Is that right?”