Private The Making of Senator Sibwarra

[Ishani Dinn]

​

Chaldean Academy, Chaldea
Music

The room where the Mystics had chosen to meet had once been an ancient council chamber. The wooden table and chairs, relics of a bygone era, were antiques; a real fireplace, blackened with the remnants of long-dead fire, stood at the far end of the chamber, crossed swords hung above the mantle. The policies of Chaldea's first rulers, battle plans, and other important strategies had all been decided here, once upon a time.

A new flag now hung from the ceiling, and the curtains had been flung open to let in natural light. The place had been dusted and swept top to bottom, and the scarred surface of the table was strewn with modern datapads, holoprojectors, and refreshments. The figures who sat in the sturdy old chairs were monastics, not politicians or generals - though today, they would be playing pretend at those roles.

As the last member of the committee entered, the doors were shut and the silencer was activated. Old Don Mohaim, whose bald head had been bowed and hands clasped on the table in prayer, raised his aged eyes and glanced around at the others.

"Are we ready to begin?... Good. Get used to this place, you'll be coming here every time we meet."

"Is that wise?" Winifred Gardner asked, smoothing her skirts. "What if we are discovered? Won't they expect us to meet here, and find a way to spy on us?"

Don Mohaim stroked his white beard thoughtfully, then nodded. "Good idea. But where else would we meet?"

"There are other rooms in the Academy," Arlo Renard replied, his tone dry and laced with impatience. "There are also other rooms in the city, as well as the planet beyond it. All we need is to meet in secret and bring the silencer."

"Well, if we're going to keep changing the meeting spot, we had all better stay up to date," Joan Hardy added. "Who will be in charge of keeping everyone posted?..."

Seated between Arlo and Head Mystic Persis Solusar, Ishani suppressed a sigh. Eventually the quibbling over security and secrecy died down, with everyone's concerns either satisfied or quelled for the moment. Persis held up a hand, signaling for silence.

"As you all know, yesterday the delegates voted for Chaldea to join the Alliance," she said, her blind eyes seeming to gaze at everyone and everything at once. "I foresaw what would happen if we did not receive their aid, but now we find ourselves facing a new crisis. In approximately one year, we will hold an election to decide upon who will represent us in the Senate. We expect many candidates will come forward to run for this office in that time. Only a few will actually make it to the election, however - and among these potential Senators, there are some whose political views and ambitions may spell disaster for Chaldea and her people should they find themselves in such a position of power.

"Therefore, we have decided it is necessary for the Mystics to present a political candidate of our own. Today, we will decide who our candidate will be." She held out her hand, gesturing with an open palm to Ishani. "I nominate Miss Ishani Sibwarra for this role. She is not a full-fledged Mystic yet, but her youth, passion, and determination are all favorable attributes."

So is the element of surprise, Ishani thought. Feeling the eyes of the others upon her, she stared at Persis' outstretched hand as though memorizing the lines of her long tapered fingers and the white crescents of her nails.

"Toloth Threepwood's daughter?" Someone whose name Ishani did not know asked.

"How can we entrust this task to her?" Winifred added. "She's just a girl."

"I am twenty-two years old," Ishani said softly, her gaze still fixed. "I am not 'just a girl', Sister Winifred." But she was the youngest person in the room, and one of only three people under the age of forty-five. "I run a business, and have two children." Swallowing, Ishani tore her eyes away from Persis' hand. "I know this is a huge undertaking. But I will do what I must for Chaldea and the Potentium."

Her expression and tone of voice were full of zeal and self-sacrificial piety. It appealed to many in the room, who had not seen such enthusiasm in one so young in a very long time.

"I don't want Toloth to be Senator, but having his daughter run against him is cruel," a woman muttered.

"My relation to him means nothing," Ishani insisted. "I am Ishani Sibwarra, not Ishani Threepwood."

"Does he still consider you his daughter?"

Ishani's chest tightened at the question. She fought to regain her composure, finding her voice again. "If he does, it is only because he wants to exert control over me. I will not allow it."

"Are there any other nominees you wish to put forward?" Persis asked the others. No one spoke. "Very well. If there are no other options, then it is decided."

 

[Ishani Dinn]

After the meeting concluded, Ishani went to use the refresher. When she returned, she found Persis and Arlo waiting for her - at least, she assumed that was the case. Both of them were looking up at the towering statue of Tania Bayern, one of the founders of the Order of Mystics. Clad in long flowing robes and a veil carved from white marble, she held a spear in one hand and a staff in the other. Symbols of holy defense and monastic wandering, respectively.

The pair seemed absorbed in conversation, but when Ishani approached, both fell silent and turned to look at her.

"You did well," Persis said. "But I have come to expect model behavior from you these past few days."

"Thank you." Ishani gave her a slight bow, then glanced at Arlo. Her master looked very serious, his lips pressed in a thin line and his arms clasped behind his back. She had a sudden sense that she was being tested, and merely thanking Persis wasn't the right thing to do.

"Much remains to be done before you will be ready to assume office," Persis went on before Ishani could say anything more. "You must be fully prepared. It will require a great deal of hard work - years' worth of study and integration squeezed into the span of just one year. Are you ready to begin?"

Ishani blinked, the sensation of being weighed and measured still hanging over her. "What do I need to do?"

"You must learn. Politics is much more than just public speaking, more than appearances, more than intrigue. And you must know Chaldea, the needs and wants and history of her people, better than you know the ones you love most."

"Who will teach me all these things?" Ishani asked weakly.

"The best tutors we can find. I will oversee your education, and teach you all that I can." As Arlo took a step forward, Persis paused, listening to the creak of his leather boots. "Your Mystic training will have to be put on hold."

"What?" Ishani blurted. "But—but what about our agreement?"

Persis raised an eyebrow. "I don't recall making an agreement with you about this. You cannot train to be two different things at once."

"But that's just it," Ishani insisted. "You said you wanted me to be senator because I was a Mystic—you told everyone in that room that I was chosen from among their ranks! But I'm not a Mystic—yet. How can I become one if you won't let me finish my training?" When Persis did not immediately respond, she blurted, "You said I was supposed to be a bridge between worlds."

"You are not a bridge—you are factionless. You have been Sith and a Jedi, yet you were truly neither. It's the same now that you are a Mystic—only a student, never a master. Never complete."

"How can I ever be complete if you won't let me—"

"I'm not finished," Persis interrupted gently but firmly. "This is your greatest advantage. You have never had an identity of your own. You can be all things to all people. You can be Chaldea personified, Ishani, but Chaldea is not only the Mystics. If I let you complete your training, you will speak like a Mystic, think like a Mystic, feel like a Mystic, and nothing more. Do you understand?"

Ishani scowled. "I understand, and I won't stand for it." She couldn't bear the thought of letting anyone rule her life like this, dictating who she was and who she would be.

Persis was unmoved. "You already have. Unless you wish to break faith with me, and entrust Chaldea's fate to the likes of your father, you will do as I have commanded."

Infuriated, her lower lip quivering with indignation, Ishani looked to Arlo for support. Her master said nothing, his expression unreadable. Ishani faltered. "Did you agree to this?" she asked.

"I will resume your training after the election," he replied, still stiff and dignified.

Ishani looked between the two of them. Finally, taking a deep breath, she said, "I am ready to begin."

 

[Ishani Dinn]

Music​

Ishani left the Academy with Arlo. The two walked side by side through the streets of Nezamiyeh, her with her arms crossed over her chest, him with his hands still clasped behind his back. For a long while, neither spoke. They listened to the sounds of the wind through the leaves, the laughter and shrieking of children playing in a schoolyard, the hustle and bustle of transports flying overhead and people going about their business. Evening was beginning to fall already.

Eventually they passed by a church where a choir was singing. Arlo joined his voice with theirs, singing the hymn in his strong baritone.

"What language is that?" she asked.

"Zeltron," he replied, speaking softly so as not to disturb the peace that had settled over the area.

She heard the low rumble of an organ gently joining the chanters, and her lips parted at the transcendent beauty of it all. "It's beautiful."

"Yes. The Zeltrons who have come to the Potentium have made many beautiful things in the faith." He closed his eyes and tilted his head back. "But it isn't the kind of thing you'd expect from a Zeltron, is it?"

"Well, I try not to make assumptions about people."

"That's a good trait to have." He smiled at her, and for a while it was quiet again as they listened to the music. “I take it you aren't happy about Persis' plans for you."

“I hate it,” she growled. “I hate it because I feel like she’s trying to control me, and I hate it even more because resisting her makes me feel like a spoiled little girl who doesn’t know any better.”

Arlo laughed heartily at that. “Oh, to be young and ignorant and foolish again… But don’t be disheartened. You should resist her, in any way you can.”

 

[Ishani Dinn]

"What, should I act even more like a defiant child?"

"No, but do what she doesn't expect every now and then. She thinks she has your number, like there's nothing more to you than what she already knows. Surprise her. But only if it's something you want to do - don't defy her just for the sake of it. That would be childish."

They had reached Ishani's house. Reaching out to open the gate, she turned to face Arlo. "Does she really think she knows me that well?"

"She's known you all your life, hasn't she?"

This was true. Persis had long been a colleague and friend of Ishani's father, and so Ishani had been around her often enough that she was comfortable with the woman's presence. Once upon a time, she had considered Persis a trusted confidant, someone she could talk to about things she couldn't discuss even with her own mother. Persis was smart enough to realize it would be detrimental for Chaldea if Toloth Threepwood became their representative, but otherwise she still agreed with him in most things. It was Toloth's temperament and his overly controlling nature which concerned her more than his politics.

"I suppose so," Ishani agreed. "But I've changed a great deal in these last four years. I don't think she realizes that."

"Then prove her wrong." Arlo waved as he turned to continue his trek home. "Good night."

"Good night," Ishani echoed back, watching him disappear into the cool violet twilight.

 

[Ishani Dinn]

She opened the door of her little cottage to a riot of noise. The holoscreens were on, playing cartoons, and the squeals of two young children were following by the whir of a droid struggling to keep up with them.

"Mama's home!" she called, and the squeals became cheers. Her twins, Marcus and Eloise, came running to greet her, fisting their hands in the folds of her dress. She stooped to hug and kiss them, scooping them up one in each arm, and set them on the island stools. The children cheered, knowing this meant it was dinnertime, and the grateful nanny retreated to her station to power down for the night.

"Were you two good while I was gone?" she asked them as she powered up the kitchen. Fully mechanized, it did most of the work for her; she just had to choose what she wanted to eat.

"Yes," the twins answered in unison. Eloise was fidgeting, impatient for dinner, though she fell still when a bowl of mac and cheese was laid before her.

"You must be pretty hungry," Ishani remarked as she watched her daughter dig into her food. "Slow down. You'll make yourself sick."

Within seconds, Marcus had made a mess of his meal, cheese sauce all over his face. Ishani grabbed a napkin and cleaned him up, then noticed he was wearing some of his dinner splattered on his clothes. Well, they were due for a bath this evening anyway...

As she waited for her own dinner to finish cooking, Ishani pulled a chair over beside the stools, kicked off her shoes, and removed her Mystic veil. The system chimed and spat out her dinner. She sat beside the children and ate.

It wasn't long before something went wrong. Eloise suddenly screeched "Don't touch me!" and slapped her brother's hand away. He giggled and reached out to poke her again.

"Don't poke your sister," Ishani warned.

For a little while, there was quiet. But then...

"Mommy, he did it again!"

"Well, poke him back and see how he likes it."

But rather than poke him back, Eloise shoved her brother hard enough to knock him off the stool. Ishani leaped to her feet as soon as she heard the thud of Marcus' body hitting the floor and was kneeling at his side in seconds. He appeared unhurt, but he was wailing loudly, his face red and wet with snot and tears.

"What's the matter with you?" she demanded of Eloise.

The girl just glared, though she was shaking a little with fear.

"Go to your room," Ishani ordered.

Eloise's lower lip started to tremble, until finally her expression crumpled and she started to sob.

"Now!" Ishani snapped. Eloise took off running.

Sighing, Ishani scooped Marcus up, gave him another once over, and comforted the boy until his crying ceased. This mostly involved letting him lie in her lap while she sat in her favorite chair, finishing her meal.

"You need to stop bothering your sister," Ishani said between bites, rubbing Marcus' back. "When you bother her, it's like poking a tiger. You know what a tiger is?"

"Big kitty cat?"

"Yup. You poke a tiger, they get mad, and then they eat you. You bother your sister, she gets mad, and then she shoves you."

"I like your hair long Mommy," Marcus said. "You look pretty."

Ishani snorted. "Are you just saying that to butter me up?" But there was a strange stinging sensation behind her eyes at his words, the prickling of tears against her tired eyelids. "Here, you wanna try some of this?" she asked, holding out her fork to him.

"No!" He turned his face away. "That's gross."

"Well, I like it. Does that make me gross?"

Marcus pondered this for a moment, then grinned. "Yes. You're gross."

"Am I pretty, or am I gross?"

"Both."

 

[Ishani Dinn]

Ishani waited a few minutes longer before she went to Eloise's room. The girl was lying in bed facing the wall.

"Marcus has something to say to you." She laid a hand on Marcus' shoulder.

"Sorry I poked you," he said.

"Do you have anything to say to him?"

At first, Eloise didn't say anything. Her mother repeated the question, at which point Eloise rolled over, rubbing her eyes. "Sorry I pushed you off the stool," she mumbled.

"Alright." Ishani sighed in relief. "Now, it is bath time..."

Once the children were clean and dry and dressed in their pajamas, she put them to bed. They asked for a fairytale, so she read one to them about a little mermaid who fell in love with a human, and when the story was finished she turned out the lights and went to her own room.

The bedroom was large, too large for a single woman. A king-sized four-poster bed, dreamsilk drapes hanging from the whitewood frame, was the centerpiece, and she had filled an entire wall with bookshelves and tables and a beautiful wardrobe carved from hickory that her parents had gifted her as a high school graduation present, yet there was still plenty of space left empty.

Peeling off her black gown, she threw on a nightgown, brushed her teeth, and crawled underneath the sheets. She felt exhausted, yet sleep evaded her. Her bed was too big, too empty, too lonely. Lying awake, staring at the ceiling, she began to feel that prickling sensation in her eyes again.

It was so foolish, all of it. She hadn't really known Arcturus for that long, had she? A year or so. A year out of her life. Yet it felt like everything turned on the hinge of him leaving her. She ought to have been grateful that he did, since he was the one thing keeping her with the Sith. Once he disappeared, she was free.

Looking at it that way, her grief was replaced with love renewed. They say that absence only makes the heart grow fonder, well, absence had made her heart grow very fond of him. Sometimes she caught herself almost making a saint out of the ginger alchemist, an object of adoration. She would stoop and wash his feet with her long hair, the golden mane which Marcus had said made her look pretty.

But even as her love for him soared to new heights, the ache of losing him worsened. She felt it in her bones now, her very soul.

I will never see you again. I will never hear your voice. You will never hold our children in your arms. We will never have a life together. I love you, Arcturus, but as the dream, not the reality.

Ishani closed her eyes, tears slipping out of the corners and trickling down her temples. Behind her eyelids she saw him, or a memory of him, a fragment.

Turning to Arcturus, she pounced on him. What was supposed to be an enthusiastic embrace proved a miscalculation; she sent them both toppling over into a (thankfully) cushy row of overgrown wheat.

"Are you okay?" she asked, though she was already laughing at her own stupidity. She rolled off of him, flopping on her back on the crops. It was soft beneath her. "This is crazy. I think we've both gone crazy." Turning over on her side, she looked at him. "Do you realize all this started because I came into your room and asked you to make me a sword?..."

She could almost feel him in the dark, could almost see his hair turning to red-gold in the sun. Could smell the forge clinging to him, mingling with the sweet scent of wheat and the fresh air of Folende, the world that could've been theirs.

"If I were Lord, would that make you Lady?"

His voice was still in her ear when she finally drifted off.

~~~

 

[Ishani Dinn]

FIN​