Snake in the Grass

[lumy12]

Title: "Snake In The Grass"
Fandom: Star Wars
Characters: Palpatine, young!Anakin
Prompt: swficchallenge's Prompt #2010-01: Come out and play; fanfic50's #11 - Defy
Word Count: 339
Rating: G
Summary: Anakin visits the Chancellor. (...why do I feel like this description fits a lot of my fics, hmmmmm!)
Author's notes: If this looks familiar, you probably read it when I first posted it in the comm; I was just waiting for the challenge to be over to post it here, at mod's request. And I over-waited a little :)


When the comlink announced little Anakin's arrival, Chancellor Palpatine switched off the HoloNews and sighed. "I told you to send him up," he chastised the device.

An awkward pause. "He doesn't want to come up, Sir, he wants you to come down. To... 'come out and play', to be exact."

What sort of rubbish was this? As if he were a child to be beckoned out to the street for a game! Palpatine had other plans for Anakin today. He had fallen into a comfortable routine of mentoring the lad in the comfort of his spacious apartments. "Nonsense! Send him up at once."

The voice that answered did not belong to the nervous guard, but to young Skywalker himself, who babbled excitedly without fear of reprimand. "Chancellor Sir, you're always saying we can do whatever I want when I come to your house. But we're always inside! It's so nice out, can't we just this once go play in Coruscant Park? Please? Master Obi-Wan won't let me 'cause he says parks are for meditation. But I know they play ball there. I miss playing with my friends back home. I don't have lessons today and you don't have work so it's like we're meant to go have fun, don'tcha think?"

Fun. To Palpatine, the concept had a meaning foreign to most beings. Fun was watching the HoloNews serve up his propaganda, as well as analyzing the faces and voices of the news anchors for signs of disloyalty. Fun was dealing with the traitors such scrutiny produced. And... yes, fun was indulging the young boy's whims -- especially the ones that defied Kenobi's teachings. Certainly such an outing would present its own teaching opportunities, the likes of which Kenobi would know nothing. At the very least, it would be a secret between himself and his future apprentice to add to his collection.

And so the Supreme Chancellor, accompanied by his security detail, escorted a young Jedi Padawan to the park, his robes collecting debris as they trailed through the grass.

Comments

[zigsternenstaub.livejournal.com]

I really liked this. For one thing, this seemed a quite realistic Palpatine: one concerned with politics and work, rather perturbed and astonished by the young boy's bizarre request. I also liked the lonely homesickness of Anakin's character, which seemed also to reflect the hidden lonliness of Palpatine's character walking through the park with his only real friend in the world--a young boy that he is manipulating like a the proverbial 'snake in the grass,' as you noted in your extremely clever title.

There's something quite sad about this small piece that I truly love. Well done.

[luminations.livejournal.com]

Oh wow, what a splendid review! Thank you! (next up... Palpakin fluff, if I ever get around to writing it)

[gizzi1213.livejournal.com]

Fluff?? For the current swficchallenge prompt??? Hmmmmm, not a prompt I'd associate with fluff, but you Palpatine types are a bit odd!

[ansketil-rose.livejournal.com]

Hmmmmm, not a prompt I'd associate with fluff, but you Palpatine types are a bit odd!

Thank you. ;)

[gizzi1213.livejournal.com]

So you should prove you're a bit odd and get your response posted!!!!

[zigsternenstaub.livejournal.com]

Palpatine types are a bit odd!

Guilty as charged.

[gizzi1213.livejournal.com]

So I extend the same offer to you that I did to ansketil_rose, you should write a response to the latest challenge prompt on swficchallenge and prove just how odd you Palpatine types are!!!

[zigsternenstaub.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately I found out about the prompt too late to answer. I'm a slow writer!

[luminations.livejournal.com]

*evil cackle*

Yup! I can spin any prompt into Palpakin fluff if I so choose!

And here I am, ready and able to write... yet I answer the comments I was DENIED at work. lol

[zigsternenstaub.livejournal.com]

You're welcome, and I look forward to more. :)

[ansketil-rose.livejournal.com]

Just thought I'd drop in to leave a comment in your literary lj. I still love this and have added it to my memories. :)

[luminations.livejournal.com]

<3333 The memories = high praise indeedy! (I really ought to start doing that with people's fic... someday I may actually make the time to go around re-reading things!)

[luminations.livejournal.com]

Thank you for reading! You think Anakin corrupts Palpatine too? Ehehe, how deliciously backwards :)

[ansketil-rose.livejournal.com]

Just rereading this - I'm getting all warm and fuzzy! *happy sigh*

[luminations.livejournal.com]

Heheeeeeee! Yay!

I love when you reread my stuff and even comment besides!

[(Anonymous)]

Hi Lumy, Ziggy here. My LJ days are long gone, but I've been looking back through your collection of fics, as I've fallen back into Star Wars again. I like most all of your stories, but this one is particularly wistful, and of course I do have a weakness for young Anakin and the Chancellor stories. I used to write so many of them, and even still have a few from the nineties still kicking around, somewhere, and I remember being so pleased that you wrote one, too. It's kind of a tiny sub-genre, but the future seems so rife with possibility here.

[luminations.livejournal.com]

Ziggy! Hello! Thanks for stopping by over here and commenting besides! I'm glad to hear you're into Star Wars again. Even if I'm not so much. I do still read an occasional stray fic here and there. If you end up writing anything again please link me to wherever you post it?

I just reread this one and vaguely remember writing it but it feels like that was in another lifetime. Very odd, but not unwelcome, feeling.

I've just started rereading The Picture of Dorian Gray. Have you read it? I first read it 7 years ago because my friend told me it reminded her of Anakin/Palpatine, and yes it certainly does to me, even now :) How funny that I started reading it apropos nothing, and here within the month you comment on an old Palpatine fic as well :) Thank you!

[(Anonymous)]

I was surprised to see that you're still doing Thursdays for jedi_news, as I did rather expect you to have fallen out of the fandom by now. Not because of anything about you in particular, but internet fandom tends to be short lived. I'm only saddened I've lost touch with just about everyone from the old UP days. I feel like we were all in a just slightly weirder version of Dead Poets Society, and had sworn to be friends (beloved enemies?) forever, only for the movie to end with apathy, suicides, and social ruin. And...someone needs to make that fandom film.

Anyway, yes, I read Dorian Gray when I was in my mid-teens, I think, and again a few years ago. A favourite of the classic literature, though I do have mixed feelings about Wilde's work over-all. I'm not sure it reminds me personally of the pairing, because everyone's just a little too much drawn on archetypal lines, but then again I never read it during any of my star wars periods either, so perhaps I shall again sometime soon.

I am writing, but won't be posting soon. I think this will be my definitive Star Wars story, saying most of the things I wanted to say about the characters for a very long time, but couldn't. So it will be long, and of course written during a time of general indifference towards the fandom, because the prequels are long over, and the sequels aren't there yet. Not that I really expect to care much for the sequels, as Vader was always and forever the reason I watched the movies, even before the emperor--and they're both a bit dead now.

Anyhow, if you want to chit-chat sometime--about the movies, or about books, or anything else--drop me a line at z.sternenstaub@gmail.com.