XXVII

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"Cav." Something poked at her shoulder. "Cav wake up."

Cavalry groaned and pushed away at the offending force, blearily opening her eyes to squint at the faintly glowing chrono on the wall.

"Respectfully, Ori'vod, it's two in the kriffing morning. What in this manda forsaken skragging galaxy do you kriffing want?" She grumbled, the vibrations from the heavy vest she was hooked into making her voice sound wet and wheezy, like a heavy smoker's. Fives gave a wheezing laugh.

"No more hanging around Kix. You got his case of 'morning language' alright."

"It's the middle of my sleep cycle. If you're going to lecture me about my skragging language you can kriff off and let me karking sleep." She coughed and hacked up a wad of mucus into a nearby basin.

"C'mon stinkbutt. Get your shebs out of bed. You have training." Fives tossed her her pair of modified civvies she had just finished the night before. She sat up and slipped her vest off.

"I graduated from Kamino and rehab doesn't start until eight. What training?" She groaned, rubbing sleep from her eyes.

"The kind only available from two thirty to four in the morning." Fives said. "Meet me in one of the briefing rooms once you're dressed and ready. Oh, and bring a datapad. You'll want to take notes.

Cav grumbled but obeyed, finding Fives's training room and taking a seat across from him at a holotable in the middle of the room. The table, to her surprise, was off with the duraplast covering over the middle. What kind of training didn't use projections for models and stuff? She had her datapad, maybe she would be using that for maps and stuff.

"So what's this for, exactly?" She asked. Fives smiled.

"This was Skywalker's idea. He wanted you to learn about undercover and special operations." He explained. Cav frowned.

"I did that on Kamino."

"Not like this." A third voice said. Cav whipped around to face the intruder, a mysterious woman with a cloak hiding most of her face. She drew her hood back revealing a vaguely familiar face, but Cav couldn't place it.

She smiled at Cav and sat next to Fives. She drew out a small hand mirror and a couple sanitary wipes and began rubbing at her face. Cav frowned as the woman's face seemed to scrub away. Her jawline softened, her cheek bones sharpened, and her nose became smaller as she wiped away makeup that left her much more recognizable.

"Senator Amidala, nice to meet you." She said.

Cav's spine stiffened automatically, her face going blank as she snapped to attention in her seat.

"Trooper Cavalry, Ma'am." The Senator threw her head back and laughed.

"No need for that." She grinned. "Padme will do just fine."

Cav nodded. "Understood." Padme rolled her eyes a little.

"Right. Relax, Cavalry. I'm not here to correct you, I'm here to teach you." Padme chided her.

Cav loosened minutely enough that it could pass as relaxed and listened intently.

"I'm here to teach you what they didn't on Kamino." Padme said. She gave a small grin. "I'm going to teach you how to be a girl."

Cav's "perfect trooper" mask slipped slightly, exposing a slight frown.

"Uh... Like makeup and stuff?" She asked skeptically. Padme threw back her head and laughed.

"And stuff." She said. Then she gave Cavalry a hard look sobering up quickly. "I won't lie to you, this will be one of the hardest things you've ever learned. Mentally and physically this will be incredibly difficult." Cavalry relaxed a bit. Hard work. She could do that.

"Ok. Where do we start?"

~

Cavalry could not do this. The high heels were killing her ankles, and the soft felt on the slender heel made her footsteps nearly silent but took away most of her traction. She wobbled on the beam she was precariously perched on about five feet off the ground. In her boots or even barefoot she could walk this easily. Heels were not in her training.

Fives was at the end of the beam with a hand outstretched towards her as she struggled to take normal steps while still staying under the decibel reader that Padme held in her hand. A couple nights of learning far more than she ever thought she could know about politics and layers of stealth that even most ARC troopers couldn't use, it was hard. Hard as Padme promised and worse.

"I don't see why this is necessary." She grumbled for the hundredth time, clasping Fives's arm and letting him lift her down. She kicked off the stilettoes with vehement hatred.

"The best spies in history were female. We can get into places unnoticed that most men can't, charming our way to the top. We can blend seamlessly into the background as slaves or stand at the front as figures of power." Padme lectured. Cavalry nodded.

"I get that, but what does high heels have to do with anything?" She grimaced.

"They help with balance and reflexes. And if you can fight well in heels then you can definitely hold your own in nearly any fight so long as you stay on your feet." Padme said with a smile.

"But you're not a fighter," Cav pointed out. "You're a senator."

Padme let out an unlady like cackle, throwing her head back and guffawing at her comment.

"Cavalry, a senator is probably the most intense job there is. Social graces and combat still are the two highest qualifications to be a good senator." She glanced at the clock on the wall. "Think of it like this. You have to maintain a certain appearance at a high end party while also staying on guard and being ready to fight at any time. The thing is, everyone else around you has those same skills if not better. And everyone has their own agenda, not just fighting for one greater cause."

She started packing up her things, slipping the high heels she had given Cav for training into a satchel and throwing on her hooded cloak. "I'll see you in a couple days. Next time we begin learning about makeup. Shapeshifting without magic." She giggled before leaving.

Cav just stretched out her sore feet with a wince and sighed.

A/N - I apologize for the wait. I had camp and then I got really sick afterwards but I needed to finish this.

Cuyanir fans: This is great! Developing story with daily updates is awesome!

Cejanr fans: You guys are getting daily updates? We only got them weekly!

Cavalry fans: You guys were getting updates?

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