Not original

I eagerly grabbed Engiz's hand and said, "Thank you." as I stumbled from my craft. I still tried to remember my manners and act like the princess I am. Grabbing my purse from the seat once I'm out, Engiz gave the keys to a Twi'lek valet, who went to move our car to one of their parking areas and took a ticket, so we could get our car back. From there, arm in arm, we moved up the stairway past several other crowds and people going up to the Opera.

I noticed then that, although this is supposedly a regular event, there were quite a few political functionaries here. I wondered if perhaps Palpatine had given those tickets out to a lot of potential political allies. After all, nothing gets a vote more than bribery, and what better way to not really be accused of bribery than to hand out gifts of an opera performance?

There's also a large crowd of paparazzi taking pictures. I tried to keep my head down and hoped no one would recognize me.

I'm wearing a green dress that did a lot to show off my hips, and I left my shoulders bare. My hair had been done up instead of being pulled back into a ponytail or let loose to hang over my shoulders. I hoped I wouldn't be that recognizable.

Admittedly, I guess it wouldn't hurt for people to recognize me, but I'm always a bit paranoid about people recognizing me, probably ever since the whole fight a few years back. Getting unwanted attention is not needed for my profession. Trying to appear inconspicuous, I held Engiz's arm closer and leaned into him, hoping that people would just not notice and assume that Engiz is an actual, albeit unknown, celebrity, and I am just an accompanying woman, thus making it harder for people to recognize me.

Once we were through the front door, the crowd of paparazzi could no longer see us, so I returned to a more reasonable position as we moved through the Opera House. It had many floors and many private rooms. Thankfully, we only had to go up two floors and down the hall past seven rooms to find where we would be.

Taking a seat, I noticed that Palpatine had yet to arrive. He's probably busy with some sort of emergency. Oh well, he would either show up later, and we would have a conversation, or not. Either way, I could sit here and enjoy this night off with Engiz, trying not to think about the politics that I would be involved in tomorrow.

Coruscant, Mandalore Tower

Vai-Viktis Vizla

"Well, that episode was not what I was expecting." Tabi said, with my arm around his shoulder as we walked down the steps from the tower.

"Now you can say that twice." I said with a shake of my head before adding, "I thought they would have delved deeper into the orphan storyline, but it's just a continuation of the movie pretty much."

Tabi nodded, his arm seemed to find its way further down my shoulder, bringing me closer. "Yep, but I'm sure the next episode will be better. Plus, I think it's just that we know most of these storylines, so it sounds like old hat to us."

"Yeah." I said, shaking my head, as we walked down to the level and tried to decide on what car we'd take tonight.

With Tanya and Engiz off on their date, it's time for us to do something by ourselves. After all, what's the point of having a boyfriend if I don't go out and have some fun with him?

I'm thinking about going to the club that we visited a while back. Lots of alcohol, plenty of fun music, and no worries of any problems occurring.

At least that was my thought until I heard a voice behind me say, "What do you mean, you know the rest of the story?" Both of us froze, turning our heads to look and see Khae standing there with a basket of laundry, obviously having come down to the laundromat just across from the car park of the tower.

Smiling, I said, "Well, you know Tanya pays attention to the story of the Silver Mandalorian, so we read a lot of her exploits too when we have free time."

Khae raised an eyebrow before shaking her head and heading towards the laundry room. I sighed, happy to have her gone, as she had obviously not figured out what was going on this time from my mistake.

I turned to look at the cars again before Tabi thought for a moment and said, "Maybe we should invite Khae to come along."

I raised an eyebrow and looked at him, confused, before he said, "Listen, sooner or later you're going to have to bring her in on the whole Silver Mandalorian thing, and if you guys don't have a good friendship by then, it's going to be kind of weird. It's better for you two to be friends, so she's okay with the fact that you gave her that little helmet-to-helmet kiss, than for you to barely know each other and be weirded out by the whole concept that you gave her a kiss like that instead of Tanya."

"Hmm, a good point," I said, shaking my head. "Besides, we can probably drop a few hints, so she's not as confused when we finally reveal it to her."

"Exactly." Tabi said, patting my shoulder before he moved to go pick up a car. I stood there at the side of the stairs, waiting for Khae to come back.

I said, "Hey Khae, we were just thinking, do you want to join us on our little trip tonight?"

She looked at me, confused, before saying, "I thought you two were going on a special date or something."

I smiled and said, "Well, that's for later, but we're just going to go drinking first, have a little party, dancing, that sort of thing."

"Hmm," Khae looked down at herself before finally sighing and saying, "I guess, but I'm not really dressed for this kind of thing."

Noting that she's wearing rather frumpy brown-colored clothing, I nodded and said, "Oh, that's easily solved." as I moved up next to her and put my arm under hers. "You're about Tanya's size; I think we can find some of her clothing for you."

"Are you sure that's an okay idea?" she said as I guided her up the stairs, rather assertively, back up to the residential part of the Tower and opened the door.

"It's fine. Tanya has me buying her clothing all the time, even has some matching mine, just so we can switch off once in a while. Oh, that reminds me, we need to get you some similar stuff that Tanya has, just so we can pull that sort of thing."

"You two switch off?" Khae asked, arching an eyebrow.

I smiled at her and said, "Yep, all the time. You wouldn't believe how many times we've had to pretend for each other. It keeps people guessing about what she's up to."

"Hmm, wait a moment. That time she was caught on camera with Tabi that was all over the news a few years back, was that you and Tabi?"

I smiled before saying, "Well, I can't exactly comment on that, not yet at least." The last bit of that sentence came out a little strangled, as I didn't want to lie to Khae. After all, that particular incident that she's referring to was the first time White Silver had shown up, and if I said yes, that would sooner or later confirm it. If I said it the way I did now, hopefully, she would figure it out on her own eventually.

Opening the door, I let her into the main hallway and back into Tanya's room, where I said, "Pick something out from inside that closet that fits. I'm sure there'll be something in there that works for you."

Letting out a sigh, Khae did as I said and went into Tanya's closet. After a few minutes, she returned with a rather nice top and short skirt. "Will this work?" she asked, holding them up, and I nodded, saying, "Yes, the place isn't too formal, so that'll be perfect. Maybe some knee-high socks too?" I suggested, leaning over and pulling out a pair from Tanya's closet and tossing them to her. She nodded and took the items into the bathroom while I sat on the end of Tanya's bed.

I waited a few moments before I heard Khae coming back out, now dressed as a pretty convincing look-alike for Tanya, showing off quite a bit of leg between the knee-high socks, the green skirt, and sleeveless top.

"I feel exposed." she complained, her cheeks warming slightly.

I shook my head as I got up and put my arm around her, saying, "You look like a girl ready to have some fun. Don't worry, I'll watch after you." I said, guiding her towards the exit of Tanya's room.

"Are you sure Tanya will be fine with me dressed like her? She won't be mad?" She asked tentatively.

"It'll be perfectly fine. After all, you should get used to doing this kind of job. I'm sure you'll have to step in as her once or twice before the next adventure."

"The next adventure?" Khae said with emphasis, looking at me curiously.

I coughed, saying, "You know, like Geonosis."

"Yeah, but as far as I'm aware, that's the only adventure Tanya has been on."

"As far as you're aware." I said with a nod, continuing to walk her by the main room and out into the hall leading to the elevator and the stairs down to the garage park.

"What other adventures has she been on?" Khae asked.

"Now that would be telling." I teased

"That's not fair." Khae exclaimed with a huff.

I shrugged before commenting, "The galaxy's not fair, but the important part is that you'll learn of it sooner or later. Tanya should be the one to tell you of all her indiscretions."

"Indiscretions?" Khae gave an odd eyebrow raise, and I smiled, knowing I said something that's just odd enough to get her interested. Sooner or later, she would start poking at it, and Tanya would have to do something, which was better than the current situation.

I did wonder how we were going to bring her in on this thing. Telling a girl that, 'Hey, I'm the White Silver, and yeah, she is too.' is going to be an odd conversation, that's for sure. Hopefully, I could dump all of that for Tanya to deal with. After all, explaining why I had kissed her is going to be annoying if I was the one who had to do all the planning. I'd rather have to explain that afterward, saying, 'Oh, I thought that would be something Tanya would do,' than any other better explanation.

Looking around, I saw that Tabi had gotten a car, and I quickly guided Khae to it, loading her into the back and sitting next to Tabi as he turned it on. We started our trip down a few levels and over a few miles to the same bar that Tabi, Tanya, and Engiz had frequented before.

We arrived at a parking lot, locked up the car, and stepped out, heading out into the street above. Tabi, being his usual self, put his arm around me and an arm around Khae to keep us close and safe at hand as we made our way up the steps, just as we had fought some gangsters the last time we had been here.

We quickly found ourselves back in the same line, and I took note of some interesting differences compared to the last time we were here. Last time, there had been a wide variety of species from across the Republic, but now it looked like they're about fifty percent human, fifty percent not, which was odd and more noticeable now for some reason. I had noticed that there were a lot more anti-Separatist commercials paying a bit too much attention to the fact that they were mostly alien in nature, but I didn't really think much more beyond that. After all, Mandalorians are a culture, not a species. We didn't care about that kind of silliness; we only cared about if you could fight. And if you can fight, you can fight for your freedom with the Mandalorians.

The other thing I noted is that almost every single person here has a vambrace. They're in various designs and colors, but they are vambraces of Mandalorian design, or at least close to it. Listening in, I heard one group talking about how their vambraces were from a company here on Coruscant that's trying to market the trend by building their own variants.

Which is interesting to know. I knew Tanya had taken an interest in it last time, so I would make sure to bring it up to her when I talked to her. After all, what else is a handmaiden supposed to do but serve as her eyes and ears when she's out and about?

The other thing I noticed is there were more cameras around, which is new. This part of town is rather secure, but here they are, cameras watching the sidewalks and the street. Perhaps it's to prevent the gang fights that had happened before. No, that couldn't be it because, as I looked around, I noticed there's an increased presence of Coruscant police and the new clone troopers who were helping them.

The red-armored shock troopers, or whatever they were called, are walking around and seemingly trying to make themselves friendly to the people, it felt like.

Tanya had already talked about this a while back. She assumed it was an effort to try and humanize the clones among the population of Coruscant. After all, if they are out fighting the droids on the frontier, it's likely they would be thought of as nothing better than droids. Though I did question if that would actually work, considering there are droids walking around Coruscant doing the exact same kind of work.

Shaking my head, I focused back on the bar as we got closer and closer, only stopping when I saw a flash from someone who took a picture of themselves and blinded me for a moment. I had to shake my head to clear my vision, but once that was done, we found ourselves at the front of the line and could enter safely.

It's time to have a little fun and get to know Khae better, helping her get to know us and prepare her to understand the reveal when that finally happened.