Rabé Excenil

"She may have repented it. She might have believed she was doing the right thing. She might have submitted herself to death.  But none of that changes that she broke her oath, sworn on the sould of her mistress and three of her sister handmaidens, and she was responsible for the death of another sister handmaiden; the gravest crimes a handmaiden can committ, all gathered together."

- Sabé Andierre

Rabé Excenil was a member of the Excenil family of Naboo, and a royal handmaiden to Padmé Amidala, though for a time period after her death she was considered disgraced. She was also a dancer in the Alderaan Dance Company.

Early Life(57 BBY to 33 BBY)
As the only child to the head of the Excenil family, Rabé was pressured into a political career, though from her youth she disliked politics and wished instead to become a dancer. She was allowed to pursue dance only on the side, as an area of cultural knowledge. She took her political exams five teams from when she was twelve to when she was seventeen, failing each time. When she at last gave up, she instead felt a pressure to marry, and at nineteen she married Ecros Talstrine. He died when she was twenty-three, and they had not had any children.

She had worked as servant to various Naboo politicians, and when she had difficulty finding another husband, Rabé applied to become a handmaiden. She became second royal handmaiden to Padmé Amidala. At 24 years of age, she was the oldest of the thirteen.

Handmaiden(32 BBY to 24 BBY)
In training, Rabé met Eirtaé Lasara, with whom she clashed at first, but the two became close friends when they realized how much they had in common. They became even closer during the Trade Federation invasion of Naboo, when they accompanied Amidala to Coruscant, and Rabé helped keep the Queen, Eirtaé, and Sabé Andierre from panic, which as a handmaiden was her principal task.

Aware that this was not where Rabé wanted to be, Amidala encouraged her to continue her dancing whenever her duties permitted her, and in 24 BBY quietly invited a talent scout from Alderaan to the palace in Theed, and invited Rabé to entertain. The scout was impressed, and he arranged an audition for Rabé. She went to Alderaan less than a month after Amidala left office and was accepted into the Alderaan Dance Company.

New Life Cuit Short(24 BBY to 19 BBY)
The years Rabé belonged to the company were its most difficult; first the successist crisis and then the war limited their business and put them in danger. Between what shows they were able to perform they were often confined to safehouses, and Rabé was unable to return to Naboo between 22 BBY and the end of the war in 19 BBY. Nonetheless, these were probably the happiest years of her life.

When she finally did come back, it was just in time for the funeral of her former mistress. Her family, however, was rejoicing, at Palpatine's new position of power, as he associated himself with them. But to Rabé's horror, Amidala's final active senior handmaiden Motée Sensari accused Palpatine of being responsible for their late mistress' death, and when Sabé swore a vengeance oath again him, the others followed suite. Reluctantly Rabé swore the same oath.

Their first act was to poison Captain Panaka, whom they also held responsible for Amidala's death. The plan was for Briné Salmune to poison him when he escorted Palpatine to meet with Boss Nass at Otoh Gunga. Balking at murdering their old mentor, however, when he arrived Rabé hinted to one of his bodyguards that Briné might want him dead. The following morning she and her fiancee were both found murdered.

Sabé did a small amount of investigating and found Rabé responsible and went to kill her. Rabé, horrified at what she had done, willingly received her and ceremonially knelt and bared her throat, symbolizing her acceptance of the penalty for her crime.

Post-Mortem
Despite this last gesture, because Rabé had been responsible for the death of a fellow handmaiden, Sabé first considered her to remain disgraced, and even threw her body into the sea so it could not be buried in the Handmaidens Graveyard. However, because she could not reveal the truth about Rabé's death, her name remained in the records, though none of the former handmaidens would mention it. In 4 ABY, however, when she could finally change the records, she reconsidered, and ultimately decided that Rabé had redeemed herself by accepting her death, and so she remains listed as an honorable handmaiden to this day.