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It's been several weeks since Palpatine last managed contact with Magister Hego Damask. It gnaws at her – he's been playing hard to get ever since he started encouraging her to have political ambitions beyond interfering with her father's campaign, and he's the only one who truly sees her. She suspects (knows) her father is intercepting her communications like she's some errant child – she's gotten more than a few stern lectures about Damask being untrustworthy, but her father is a jealous possessive asshole who refuses to give her the slightest independence, who seems determined to treat her as a toddler until the day she turns twenty-one and can finally be emancipated fully.
(She doesn't spend even a moment considering whether Magister Damask has lost interest in her, no matter what her father says. He hasn't, he can't, and he won't. He'll surely be seeking her out sooner or later.)
When her university announces a month-long exchange program with its partner university in Hana City on Chandrila, an opportunity for mock trials and brushing elbows with the planet's political elite, she snatches a place on the roster as soon as she can. It'll be a chance to get out from under her father's heavy hand; even if she can't get in touch with Damask (she knows her communications will be spied on, even if they're no longer controlled), it'll be a loosening of the noose.
Magister Damask isn't waiting for her there, though. She hadn't expected him to. Instead, she puts her effort into making friends in Chandrila – especially people who might shelter her from her father if needed – and she spends her little free time wandering, doing her best to blend in, to breathe air free of Naboo and its chains. Gladean Park, an enormous wildlife reserve, draws her attention most, and she flits between that and the city near it, cutting through alleys and across rugged paths, wandering in a chaotic zig-zag until the weight of eyes upon her back llightens.
And it's one of those early days – one of those moments of fresh air before her father's security team wisen up – it's a cool and damp early morning, fog clinging to the river that cuts between Hanna and Gladean, lapping at the supports of the bridge Palpatine is walking over –
It's then that she sees the woman.
