Chapter Text
Nothing in this story belongs to me unless the plot and some OC’s
“Hey, Skyguy? Why don’t you ever go on a negotiation mission with me? Why am I always paired with Master Kenobi?”Ahsoka asks indignantly, her hands were crossed tightly over her chest and her mouth set in a pout that made her look far more younger than she truly was.
Anakin looks thoughtful for a moment, then he smiles.
He beckons his padawan forward.
“I think it is about time I tell you a story.”
5 years ago
“What? Why am I stuck with the boring part?”
Anakin complained as he reread their briefing. Why in the name of sugary cinnamon roll was he tasked with the negotiating part, though the boy had a fair speculation that it would be more of a distract the enemy job rather than the finding equal parts in an argument job.
“Because I say so. Plus Master Kenobi thought it was a good idea for you to have more experience when it comes to such things.” Aayla proudly finished off.
Aaylaa was Anakin’s fellow padawan, they were approximately the same age with her scoring two more than him in years. A string of beads fell neatly on the side of her blue lekku. Her blue skin was bright and her hazel eyes were as warm as a hot brewed chocolate drink.
Anakin was a wiry young man with curly dark blonde hair which framed his handsome face. His eyes were as blue as the clear sky on Tatooine and his padawan braid hung loosely behind his right ear.
“Of course he did. You’re having fun at my suffering, aren’t you?”
15 year old Anakin complained.
“Stop Pouting, plus we’re almost there.”, the girl replied, rolling her eyes at her companion’s antics.
The Jedi Council had trusted them with a very important mission, they had to infiltrate a highly guarded palace and secure the stolen gold. Apparently the king of Sene was a highly corrupted dictator and his riches were coated with the blood of innocents. It was the first time both of them were heading on a mission without their masters and they were determined to complete it successfully.
Anakin skillfully landed their ship on the grounds of Naboo, afterall, there was still one person missing for them to head to Sene.
“Ani!”
A shout was heard as Jar Jar ran up the ramp and hugged Anakin, knocking the wind out of him.
“Uhh..it’s good to see you, Jar Jar…”, Anakin forced out as he took in deep breaths.
The chosen one sent a glare at Aayla as she was obviously trying really hard not to laugh. But then for her misfortune the gungan noticed her too and now it was her time to glare at the smirking padawan.
“Jar Jar, as the queen elected you to be her representative, the council thought it was a good idea for you to come with us.”
“You can sit over there, we will reach Sene soon”
— — —
Sene was a horrible planet, the sun was a bright shade of green and the buildings were shaped in a square in a poor attempt to impersonate the clouds over their heads.
The waves in the ocean were oddly shaped and the weather itself was terribly cold
‘What a controversial planet’, Anakin thought to himself. The sooner this mission was over the better.
A droid greeted them at the palace’s main door
“Welcome to Sene…We hope you have…an awful trip”, the droid spoke in a dead voice, his voice changing tones as quickly Anakin changed his moods.
Anakin and Aayla exchanged a confused glance, well, this was certainly playing out differently than they had expected.
It wasn’t long before the Senator of Sene himself sat them down at the main chamber as he took off to find the king
“Presenting to you His Most Strong, Dazzling, Witty, Diligent, Generous, Excellent, Heart-Breaking, Incredible, Majestic and the Handsomest Majesty who ever lived! The only ruler of Sene who can steal your breath away!”, the Senator was panting at the end.
Both the Jedi exchanged a confused look at the different introduction. Anakin shrugged.
Both the kids had enough sense not to comment on anything but apparently Jar Jar hadn’t
“Hesa so…ug..mppfh”
Anakin and Aayla quickly slapped Jar Jar’s mouth shut.
Behind the curtains came the most hideous person that ever cried in the entire galaxy. His ‘Most Handsomest Majesty’ had a face like someone threw up on him. His arms flailed around his body almost slapping his face as his legs staggered beneath his great mass. Overall, the king looked like a pudgy bantha minus the whole hairdo, his chin was as clean as a newborn’s bottom with a few hairs sticking out here and there and his voice as high strung as a baby’s cry.
The Senator said it wrong, the king should have been known as ‘His Most Ugly Pudginess’. Anakin snickered as his brain found out more ways to make the scene comedic.
The king also apparently had more than one pet who had decided that they did not like Anakin as they started to bite his leg pant’s hem.
Suddenly Aayla gave a sharp jab at their Force bond causing the boy to let out an undignified squeak.
“I need to slip out. Cover for me”
Without giving Anakin any time to respond she started to walk away
“WAI…t…never mind”
“What happened? What is the cause of this audacity!”, the king thundered, or at least tried to, as his voice came out more in a squeak than a shout.
“Uh, my…sister….has a bad stomach! Her digestion is terrible, it causes bad smells. Trust me, you don’t want to be near her when that happens.”
Aayla sent Anakin a death glare which he just smirked in response.
“Soo..what is your name again?”, the king asked, his chin stuck out impossibly high giving him a resemblance of a splattered cake.
“Hesa name is An…”, Jar Jar started talking
“Ali!”, Anakin shouted, “Ali... My name is Ali”
“Ali. And what planet do you hail from, Ali?”, the Senator asked.
Oops, this wasn’t supposed to go like this. He hadn’t prepared for such questions. Kriff it!
“Uhh.. Arabian Nights.”
Really? Nice going, Skywalker!
“Arabian Nights, different name. And where is your planet located again?”, the Senator asked
Far far away from yours “Outer Rim, real outer.”
“And what food have you come to sell here, Ali?”, the king demanded
“Goblets!”, Anakin shouted the first word that came to his mind. Looking at the shocked looks directed at him he quickly amended.
“No, not goblets. Of course not goblets. I mean we don’t eat goblets..i mean… we don’t drink goblets. We drink from cups…uh..so not goblets…back on planet we drink from goblets…..Grapes! That’s it. We’we come to sell grapes.”, Anakin stuttered out, and he winced. Who on Sith Hells had the worst idea of giving him the distraction part?!
“Grapes, so you sell grapes. What kind?”, the king asked
“Grapes have types, your majesty? Of course we have types, we have! The short ones, the long ones, the two headed ones… In fact we also have many colours as well.”
Ughh, get it together Skywalker.
“We have yellow, green, cobalt, red, pink, magenta, blue, cyan, orange, maroon….uh…forest green, indigo, greenish blue..uhh…pinkish purple…and…..AMBER!”
“Oh did I mention Amber, because we have that too.” Anakin finished off in a calm jedi voice as if he hadn’t just given a heart attack to those who had drawn closer to him to hear his quiet mumbling..
The King and the senator jumped twenty feet in air, banging their head on the ceiling
“Ouchie”
Anakin had to pinch himself real hard so he wouldn’t end up laughing.
“At this rate you might just have black.” The senator scoffed. He was a middle aged man with sharp features and a way too angular face, the complete opposite of his so-called ‘majesty’.
“Yousa a idiot, black grapes don…”, Anakin gave a hard jab at Jar Jar to shut him up
“Ouchie!”
“Of course we have black. Which black would you prefer? Raven Black, Midnight black, coal black…”
Anakin started inching closer and closer to the listening party as the said started scurrying away from the creepy kid that somehow they had gotten stuck with.
“Of course a fine man like you, your highness, would love our blackish black grapes.”
“Uhh…Ali…” The king hurried to say as he had somehow found himself hitting the wall with the strange boy talking down his nose.
”I have heard that your planet is a desert. Is it true?”.
That hit a bit too much home. Anakin winced as he remembered everything that had been done to him those years ago on Tatooine. Hot anger flooded his veins as he shouted on the top of his lungs. Of all climates, why that one?
“WHY WOULD IT BE A DESSERT?”
Apparently he had screamed real high cause the guards that were waiting outside the chambers suddenly rushed in, quick to protect the king. This might be their only chance at discovering the corruption of this planet and bring proof of it to the Council. He couldn’t ruin it.
“Of course it would be a dessert! You guessed it just right, your highness. You have an incredible skill, your Highness”, Little bit of undeserved flattering really does go a long way.
He was showing nothing more than the emotional jedi facade, yet somehow even Jar Jar looked frightened. And that’s saying a lot because that gungan couldn’t know a person in front of him was angry until he got punched.
“How do you travel there?”, One of the guards asked. While the other gave him a death glare.
“Aha, excellent question. We travel in …camels…? Actually I have brought one with me.”
Anakin points straight to Jar Jar
“That is a camel?”, the senator asks in sarcasm
“Of course!”. Anakin slaps Jar Jar’s back making him bend
Sorry Jar Jar, but work with me. Anakin whispered in his ears.
“See this? Four legs, good back for transporting people and the long flappy ears? It’s a hybrid of a donkey and a camel.”
“Transporting people," you said. Then show it.”
“Excuse ya but…”but the unfortunate gungan quickly gets silenced again.
Anakin had an urge to cry, of course he had to be the one who was stuck in this place. Where was Aayla anyways?
Anakin harshly sits on Jar Jar’s back as he makes the poor gungan take one, two and many rounds. Faster than the eye could see there were more than one person on his back and between the chaos the young jedi got flung out.
“Just my luck”
Anakin said bitterly as he watched the senator, the guards, the maid, the king and the pets sitting on poor Jar Jar’s back
Oh boy, I owe him a bunch of pancakes after this!
Anakin thinks dismally.
As the events happened eventually everyone calmed out his majesty apparently remembered something
“Where is your companion?”
“My…oh! You mean Aayla. Ah she’s probably caught up in the palace…looking at…the clothes?”
“Clothes?” the nearby maid asks him
“Yeah, you know how girls are. Feisty when asked yet a river could run dry with the time they choose to wear which clothes. She probably wanted to look extra presentable in front of you, Your Highness”
His phrase worked as everyone burst out in laughter. Desperate not to be questioned anymore, he quickly raised the black glass in front of him.
“What’s this? I’m going to try it.”
Obviously there was a very good reason as to why the guards tried to stop him from drinking as the bitter fluid travelled down his mouth only to clog down his throat. The strange taste of fermented grapes…Wine! He had just drank wine! And Force, it tasted terrible, like how you expect….never mind.
Anakin spit out the drink in a hurry, accidentally short wiring a circuit near him, which weirdly caused a strange noise.
“Moo” Anakin said out loud
“What?” The Senator asked
“On our native planet, we moo at the moon. It’s nearing night now”
“Uhh sir. It’s afternoon”, one of the guards reminded him
“Exactly, after noon so that means night.”
The king looked like he had heard the most wise words in his entire life, his eyes were mooned as he watched in fascination as Anakin did a strange gig around the floor.
“Moo, Moooo, Mooooooo, Mo, Mooo”, Anakin danced around, mind you, it was not on purpose, the dance at least. The shock from the short circuited wire was quite strong as the padawan tried to wear the jolting pain off.
“Why, why, why me?!”
The guards looked amused, wondering how they had gotten stuck in this confusion.
I bet Aayla is having a better time than me!
Just out of nowhere the gates to the chamber opened up to reveal…a man?
A man using a chess board to cover himself as he ran down the hallways followed by the trumpeting noise of various exotic animals. And at the very end of the corridor there was Aayla with a sheepish look on her face.
That was the moment he realized they had fucked up.