Shmi's Choice by Apache

[bant.livejournal.com]

I was just checking lj, wondering what tonights TPM rec would be and I realized that would be me. So here it is.

Title:Shmi's Choice
Author:Apache
Rating:NC-17
Pairing:Qui-Gon/Shmi

Warnings: Het
Author's e-mail:lf@cais.com (this is dated from '99 so may not be working) or there is another listed with this story but squidge is acting up.
Link to story:http://www.squidge.org/~ancientservant/starwars/stories/shmischoice/shmi.html

Connection on the archve is variable. The past few times have been incredibly slow.

Reasons for recommending: I thought I'd recommend something completly different this week. As much as I love Q/O, I thought I would open some new territory.It's been a long time since I read this story. At least four years so I had to do a little research to find the site as the author had pulled many of her TPM stories off the internet. I think most of them are back on one site or another.This is one of the very first TPM stories I read. You could call it pre-slash, as I hadn't read or discovered the world of Q/O yet. ;) It's an incredibly well-written story from a totally different angle than we MA list readers are used to by an author who is published professionally under another name.



It seemed to be something he did well, waiting. The legends told of the Jedi knights in battle, how a single one could quell the disturbance of an entire planet, could end a war, could force a peace or throw his or her power into making a victory for a hopeless underdog. The legends said they were mystics, that they could fly and move mountains without even a single touch, that they could steal a man's will, even make you forget you had ever seen them. The legends called them mindreaders, wizards, sorcerors, and terrors.

This one -- he was big, and now she saw the warrior in him, but even so, all he did was stand there. There was nothing in him that seemed a terror or a conjuror. He was strangely content to wait for whatever Annie might do, all but passive. Unless he was actually handling something, he tucked his big, rough hands away under his poncho. When nothing was actively demanding that he deal with it, he simply wrapped his arms around themselves and stood somewhere. There was always a slight frown of concentration on his brow, but nothing more. He seemed impervious to the worry and doubt that gripped his companions, and equally impervious to the excitement that fueled Annie. Why?

Sunset and early night were Tatooine's best hours, when the heat reduced to simply warmth, and the change in temperature stirred the air to small, pleasant breezes. Such a one was playing with the man's hair yet again, shifting the part of it that hung loose around his jaw to tangle in his beard, even lifting over his head, where it flicked mockingly over the part that was pulled back so tightly along his scalp.

Shmi slipped past behind him soundlessly, going down the stairs into the sandy street with neither a word nor a backward glance. The breeze tugged at her tightly braided hair without success, but she enjoyed the freshness of the air on her face, the momentary coolness. She faced into it, toward the open desert, and kept walking.

He followed her.

You can find more stories by Apache at http://www.quigonjinn-online.org