Post by emlayy on Mar 13, 2006 19:13:57 GMT -5
This is something I posted over at FFN so I thought I'd try it here. I may post it on TFN, I don't know. So. Yeah. This is a year post DN. You can read it on FFN here.
Title: Fade
Author: Emlayy
Summary: How did we let ourselves get this far away?
Notes: First fic that I'm halfway happy with. One year post DN. Jaina doesn't say 'we' anymore, since it's one year past, and because in TSW she was making a concerted effort not to say 'we' anyway.
Disclaimer: I own nothing. It all belongs to our beloved Lucas.
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I (it seemed like such a strange, alien word—it still sometimes feels wrong, even though I keep it in use) hate being confined, but that's what I am. I'm stuck in a little cell at the Jedi base. Well, it's not a cell. It's a room in the medbay, but I'm going to call it a cell, because no matter what they disguise it as, they're holding me prisoner here and that makes it a cell. Cilghal tends to me and everyone checks in on me. They make it look as if they're concerned about me, but I think it's more concern for whether or not I'm going to wreck the galaxy again. I don't know why they can't let me out. It's been a year. The Joiner bond hasn't dissolved completely—maybe that frightens them—but I have my own sense of self. It's the bond to Zekk, not a bond to the Killiks. I know they let Ben go, despite the fact that he was Joined to the Dark Nest and I was only Joined to the normal Killiks. I think it was Jacen who suggested keeping me in here. He manipulates everyone, why am I the only one to see it? Maybe being stuck in a cell nearly all day gives you more time to think life over and acknowledge it from all perspectives. They let me out—Force, that makes me sound like some sort of caged animal, but maybe that's what I am now—each day, mostly for me to stay current and see the people I care about. But I have no missions. At night, they take me back to the cell and lock me in. For what? I don't know. I'm not going to take a ship to the other side of the galaxy to renew the bond with Zekk and overthrow the Alliance. I've told them that. But they don't believe me. I think Jacen told them not to (it sounds so terrible to be blaming Jacen but I think he did, it seems like he did), even though any Force-sensitive would have been able to know I was telling the truth. But they're all scared that I could start another war, so close after this.
The Swarm War shook everyone. When I look at people who come in to make sure I'm doing okay, I can tell that they blame me, at least partially.
It's not my fault. Well, it is, a little. I could have resisted. Jacen resisted. Tenel Ka resisted, even though it meant barricading herself inside the Hapan Palace and not going out until the call faded. Maybe I wasn't strong enough. I don't know. I can't even remember the last time I felt strong.
That's another lie. I do remember. The Jedi Acadamy years. Force, those were wonderful—the way we firmly believed in the light and the dark, how we thought that we could do anything if we weren't alone...stronger together.
I want to go back.
Those days...so uncomplicated. Mom—Mother—Leia—well, who is she to me, now? I remember so clearly how much I admired her and wanted to be like her. Wanted to marry and have kids and hold the New Republic together. Just like her. Now, though, I'm not so sure. It's clear she doesn't trust me anymore, not really. She doesn't trust Zekk either, and I don't think she ever really trusted him. Not even after he saved all of us at the praxeum during the time of the Shadow Academy. Or all the times he saved me.
That time on Hapes...I do remember feeling betrayed that he didn't help me like I helped him. But somehow I can't see myself—that me—accepting help. I was so blind. I pushed everyone away. I was Jaina Solo, my brothers were dead, but I was going to carry on, pathetically clueless about all the terror happening around me. I stumbled along obliviously and in my obsessive little daze, I nearly fell for Ta'a Chume's plot to marry me off Tenel Ka's father (which is all the more frightening if you realize that Tenel Ka is a year older than me) and then I fell into the dark side. Ta'a Chume poisoned Teneniel Djo. I can still hear Tenel Ka's harsh words to me at that time. I will not have my mother's life dishonored by your vengeance. Because revenge is of the dark side.
The dark side. Jacen can swagger around proclaiming his great truths about the Force, but I root myself. He's wrong. Uncle Luke—Master Skywalker—has always told us to respect others' beliefs. But I know Jacen's wrong. The more I dwell and brood on it, the more I see that me in his actions. The arrogant one who thought she was always right no matter what.
That me is dead. I can't reach her anymore. That's okay. I don't want to be that person.
Who do I want to be? The answer is so easy, but it's also impossible. I want to be fourteen, fifteen, sixteen. I want to be at the Jedi Academy smiling at Zekk and watching Jacen and Tenel Ka awkwardly flirt with each other. As crazy as it sounds, I want to hear Em Teedee going on in that shrill voice of his—so much like Threepio's—and Lowbacca chuffing with laughter. I want to be ruffling Anakin's hair and calling him 'little brother' (even though we were only a year and a half apart). I want to be laughing with Raynar and Lusa and I want to be that girl whose one great belief was stronger together.
How did we let ourselves get so far away?
I'm not that girl. Tenel Ka is the reluctant Queen Mother of Hapes, not the warrior girl who scorned politics and refused a prosthetic arm. Zekk is somewhere on the other side of the galaxy, waiting in that patient way of his for our bond to dissolve and fade away. Lowie is on Dagobah. Em Teedee...all I know is that he's gone and won't come back. It sounds silly to miss the droid who we all proclaimed as annoying, but I do. Anakin is dead. Raynar is UnuThul, a dead man masquerading as a damaged one. Lusa is dead.
What hurts the most? We can lie and say it was the war with the Yuuzhan Vong and all the ones we loved that were lost. But what hurts the most is that we can't go back, and we don't have any way of going back. We have no links to our past left. We've all changed so much, so terribly. There is none of our past selves in these new ones, these new people who stare at the galaxy harsh and unflinching.
Everyone else pushes these things to the backs of their minds. They don't want to think about all the things that could have been if...if what? All these new beginnings...they were all cut off somehow. By what?
Maybe it wasn't just the Yuuzhan Vong. Dad still curses the "kriffin' Vong" for destroying the galaxy as we had known it. But hadn't our family been falling apart long before that? Jacen and Anakin's fighting. That had come out of nowhere, it truly had. They had always gotten along quite well. Sure, they had different interests, but they were close. And then, just one day it seemed, they were falling out all over the place, insisting the other was wrong. I still don't know when they started to drift. Jacen won't talk about it. I think that they both hated the fighting and they both wanted to apologize and start over...but somehow, they just didn't know each other anymore. They didn't know what the other wanted anymore, and so they kept fighting.
Then the Yuuzhan Vong dropped the moon on Chewie. It sounds like I'm blaming the Yuuzhan Vong. I guess in a way I am. No one wants to think that it's their own family's fault that the family fell to pieces.
For awhile after that, things were awkward. The rift between Anakin and Jacen healed, but only slightly. Anakin was sorrowful. Dad laid the blame for Chewie's death on him, no matter how unintentionally. By Duro, things seemed to have healed, but I think we ripped the bacta patch off too soon. The wound was still open and bleeding.
Myrkr. No matter what else happened during that—I can't even think of a word terrible enough to describe it—war, Myrkr was the worst. Nearly everyone died. Jacen was ripped away, and in a sense, he died too. Anakin died. Tahiri and Tenel Ka were heartbroken. Tahiri wept all the time and closed herself away. Tenel Ka exploded inside an escape pod, and then hid it for the rest of the war. I can't remember her even talking to Jacen during the knighting ceremony. It seemed all so terribly mistaken. Jacen and Tenel Ka were supposed to be elated to see each other. At the praxeum, it had been so obvious how much he liked her and she liked him.
Did the war kill that, too?
Jacen went to Hapes to ask her for the fleet at the beginning of the Killik/Chiss conflict. I know that much. A year later, she gave birth. Something in the Force is niggling me about that, suggesting that I do, in fact, know the identity of Allana's father. I dismissed it, but I have nothing but time here. It now seems so possible that Jacen could be the father. He learned so many hooks and tricks with the Force, and it wouldn't surprise me if he let a little hint about slowing growth down with the Force drop. I do remember at the praxeum how much I wanted Jacen and Tenel Ka to admit how much they liked each other. If I was trying to get my mind off troubling things, I would imagine them getting married and having children. I think a lot of other people did, too. (Not that anyone ever told them that. Tenel Ka can be scary when she's mad, though I strongly suspect she was imagining the same things as well.) They were just so right together and you wanted them happy, and they would be happy with each other. Now it seems part of my daydream came true. But in this context, I can't remember why I wanted it for them.
What happened to Jacen?
I'm not one for philosophy or deep thought. But after awhile, I had memorized the cell, my hands, my feet, and anything else I could look at from the outside. So I decided to look in.
Jacen. How to describe what happened to Jacen.
I loved my twin brother at the academy. That was the Jacen I had grown up with. This Jacen—the one who was with Vergere—is not the Jacen I know. Nor the one I love. This Jacen is cold. He manipulates and lies. He...I don't know what he did to Ben with the Force, but...it was something cruel. Jacen now, will go to any length to keep us from finding out things he doesn't want us to find out. It hurts. The old Jacen wore his heart on the sleeve of his jumpsuit. He told bad jokes—and I would take every unenthusiastic remark I made about them back if I had known this would happen—and loved animals.
Jacen means well. I can feel that. But somehow that doesn't soften the blow of everything he's done during the Swarm War. I know he hurt Tahiri. It hurts to realize that she's still broken, no matter how well she hides it. I don't know exactly what happened, but somehow Jacen landed Tahiri on Dagobah. It makes me seethe, sometimes. After Anakin died, it seems like Tahiri took his place as the little sibling, someone to love and protect. This new Jacen can't love anyone, and he's...overprotective. He goes too far, I think. I heard about the holos of Anakin Skywalker. I didn't see them, but I heard what happened. The parallels between him and Jacen are obvious. It scares me. A lot of things scare me now.
But that's the Solo family for you, isn't it? We can't get anything right, no matter how the galaxy sees it.
Mom—Mother—Mom comes in. She visits a lot. Maybe they finally realized the truth about Jacen? That's a small hope, though. No matter how obvious he is, it wouldn't matter. He has everyone wrapped around his little finger.
Tenel Ka is in denial, I think. She's still in love with the academy Jacen, the used-to-be Jacen. Maybe it's all that time she's spending in that palace of hers, but she's not Tenel Ka anymore. The old Tenel Ka would have seen through this and pushed him away. They still love each other, I know, but it's not the kind of love most people have. They're more in love with who the other used to be, and they can't accept that. Tenel Ka visited me a few weeks ago, just for a day, and being a Queen Mother is obviously taking a toll on her Jedi skills. I read her like a beginner's holonovel.
Mom looks tired, and sits down near the bed and touches my hair. She speaks softly and I can't make out what she's saying. I catch the phrase, "Jaina, my baby girl," and somehow that makes me want to cry. Here I am, a Jedi of twenty-eight, and those words from my mom make my mouth tight and trembly. My eyelids flutter rapidly, trying to blink back tears. I don't know why I bother. She's seen me cry more than once, and there's no one else around.
I reach up for a hug. Mom leans in and hugs me back. I let the tears go.
I know I look like a child, but I want to get all the love I can before I—whoever I am—fades like everyone else.
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*bites lip*
Well? Constructive criticism is appreciated muchly, pwease. ;D
Title: Fade
Author: Emlayy
Summary: How did we let ourselves get this far away?
Notes: First fic that I'm halfway happy with. One year post DN. Jaina doesn't say 'we' anymore, since it's one year past, and because in TSW she was making a concerted effort not to say 'we' anyway.
Disclaimer: I own nothing. It all belongs to our beloved Lucas.
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I (it seemed like such a strange, alien word—it still sometimes feels wrong, even though I keep it in use) hate being confined, but that's what I am. I'm stuck in a little cell at the Jedi base. Well, it's not a cell. It's a room in the medbay, but I'm going to call it a cell, because no matter what they disguise it as, they're holding me prisoner here and that makes it a cell. Cilghal tends to me and everyone checks in on me. They make it look as if they're concerned about me, but I think it's more concern for whether or not I'm going to wreck the galaxy again. I don't know why they can't let me out. It's been a year. The Joiner bond hasn't dissolved completely—maybe that frightens them—but I have my own sense of self. It's the bond to Zekk, not a bond to the Killiks. I know they let Ben go, despite the fact that he was Joined to the Dark Nest and I was only Joined to the normal Killiks. I think it was Jacen who suggested keeping me in here. He manipulates everyone, why am I the only one to see it? Maybe being stuck in a cell nearly all day gives you more time to think life over and acknowledge it from all perspectives. They let me out—Force, that makes me sound like some sort of caged animal, but maybe that's what I am now—each day, mostly for me to stay current and see the people I care about. But I have no missions. At night, they take me back to the cell and lock me in. For what? I don't know. I'm not going to take a ship to the other side of the galaxy to renew the bond with Zekk and overthrow the Alliance. I've told them that. But they don't believe me. I think Jacen told them not to (it sounds so terrible to be blaming Jacen but I think he did, it seems like he did), even though any Force-sensitive would have been able to know I was telling the truth. But they're all scared that I could start another war, so close after this.
The Swarm War shook everyone. When I look at people who come in to make sure I'm doing okay, I can tell that they blame me, at least partially.
It's not my fault. Well, it is, a little. I could have resisted. Jacen resisted. Tenel Ka resisted, even though it meant barricading herself inside the Hapan Palace and not going out until the call faded. Maybe I wasn't strong enough. I don't know. I can't even remember the last time I felt strong.
That's another lie. I do remember. The Jedi Acadamy years. Force, those were wonderful—the way we firmly believed in the light and the dark, how we thought that we could do anything if we weren't alone...stronger together.
I want to go back.
Those days...so uncomplicated. Mom—Mother—Leia—well, who is she to me, now? I remember so clearly how much I admired her and wanted to be like her. Wanted to marry and have kids and hold the New Republic together. Just like her. Now, though, I'm not so sure. It's clear she doesn't trust me anymore, not really. She doesn't trust Zekk either, and I don't think she ever really trusted him. Not even after he saved all of us at the praxeum during the time of the Shadow Academy. Or all the times he saved me.
That time on Hapes...I do remember feeling betrayed that he didn't help me like I helped him. But somehow I can't see myself—that me—accepting help. I was so blind. I pushed everyone away. I was Jaina Solo, my brothers were dead, but I was going to carry on, pathetically clueless about all the terror happening around me. I stumbled along obliviously and in my obsessive little daze, I nearly fell for Ta'a Chume's plot to marry me off Tenel Ka's father (which is all the more frightening if you realize that Tenel Ka is a year older than me) and then I fell into the dark side. Ta'a Chume poisoned Teneniel Djo. I can still hear Tenel Ka's harsh words to me at that time. I will not have my mother's life dishonored by your vengeance. Because revenge is of the dark side.
The dark side. Jacen can swagger around proclaiming his great truths about the Force, but I root myself. He's wrong. Uncle Luke—Master Skywalker—has always told us to respect others' beliefs. But I know Jacen's wrong. The more I dwell and brood on it, the more I see that me in his actions. The arrogant one who thought she was always right no matter what.
That me is dead. I can't reach her anymore. That's okay. I don't want to be that person.
Who do I want to be? The answer is so easy, but it's also impossible. I want to be fourteen, fifteen, sixteen. I want to be at the Jedi Academy smiling at Zekk and watching Jacen and Tenel Ka awkwardly flirt with each other. As crazy as it sounds, I want to hear Em Teedee going on in that shrill voice of his—so much like Threepio's—and Lowbacca chuffing with laughter. I want to be ruffling Anakin's hair and calling him 'little brother' (even though we were only a year and a half apart). I want to be laughing with Raynar and Lusa and I want to be that girl whose one great belief was stronger together.
How did we let ourselves get so far away?
I'm not that girl. Tenel Ka is the reluctant Queen Mother of Hapes, not the warrior girl who scorned politics and refused a prosthetic arm. Zekk is somewhere on the other side of the galaxy, waiting in that patient way of his for our bond to dissolve and fade away. Lowie is on Dagobah. Em Teedee...all I know is that he's gone and won't come back. It sounds silly to miss the droid who we all proclaimed as annoying, but I do. Anakin is dead. Raynar is UnuThul, a dead man masquerading as a damaged one. Lusa is dead.
What hurts the most? We can lie and say it was the war with the Yuuzhan Vong and all the ones we loved that were lost. But what hurts the most is that we can't go back, and we don't have any way of going back. We have no links to our past left. We've all changed so much, so terribly. There is none of our past selves in these new ones, these new people who stare at the galaxy harsh and unflinching.
Everyone else pushes these things to the backs of their minds. They don't want to think about all the things that could have been if...if what? All these new beginnings...they were all cut off somehow. By what?
Maybe it wasn't just the Yuuzhan Vong. Dad still curses the "kriffin' Vong" for destroying the galaxy as we had known it. But hadn't our family been falling apart long before that? Jacen and Anakin's fighting. That had come out of nowhere, it truly had. They had always gotten along quite well. Sure, they had different interests, but they were close. And then, just one day it seemed, they were falling out all over the place, insisting the other was wrong. I still don't know when they started to drift. Jacen won't talk about it. I think that they both hated the fighting and they both wanted to apologize and start over...but somehow, they just didn't know each other anymore. They didn't know what the other wanted anymore, and so they kept fighting.
Then the Yuuzhan Vong dropped the moon on Chewie. It sounds like I'm blaming the Yuuzhan Vong. I guess in a way I am. No one wants to think that it's their own family's fault that the family fell to pieces.
For awhile after that, things were awkward. The rift between Anakin and Jacen healed, but only slightly. Anakin was sorrowful. Dad laid the blame for Chewie's death on him, no matter how unintentionally. By Duro, things seemed to have healed, but I think we ripped the bacta patch off too soon. The wound was still open and bleeding.
Myrkr. No matter what else happened during that—I can't even think of a word terrible enough to describe it—war, Myrkr was the worst. Nearly everyone died. Jacen was ripped away, and in a sense, he died too. Anakin died. Tahiri and Tenel Ka were heartbroken. Tahiri wept all the time and closed herself away. Tenel Ka exploded inside an escape pod, and then hid it for the rest of the war. I can't remember her even talking to Jacen during the knighting ceremony. It seemed all so terribly mistaken. Jacen and Tenel Ka were supposed to be elated to see each other. At the praxeum, it had been so obvious how much he liked her and she liked him.
Did the war kill that, too?
Jacen went to Hapes to ask her for the fleet at the beginning of the Killik/Chiss conflict. I know that much. A year later, she gave birth. Something in the Force is niggling me about that, suggesting that I do, in fact, know the identity of Allana's father. I dismissed it, but I have nothing but time here. It now seems so possible that Jacen could be the father. He learned so many hooks and tricks with the Force, and it wouldn't surprise me if he let a little hint about slowing growth down with the Force drop. I do remember at the praxeum how much I wanted Jacen and Tenel Ka to admit how much they liked each other. If I was trying to get my mind off troubling things, I would imagine them getting married and having children. I think a lot of other people did, too. (Not that anyone ever told them that. Tenel Ka can be scary when she's mad, though I strongly suspect she was imagining the same things as well.) They were just so right together and you wanted them happy, and they would be happy with each other. Now it seems part of my daydream came true. But in this context, I can't remember why I wanted it for them.
What happened to Jacen?
I'm not one for philosophy or deep thought. But after awhile, I had memorized the cell, my hands, my feet, and anything else I could look at from the outside. So I decided to look in.
Jacen. How to describe what happened to Jacen.
I loved my twin brother at the academy. That was the Jacen I had grown up with. This Jacen—the one who was with Vergere—is not the Jacen I know. Nor the one I love. This Jacen is cold. He manipulates and lies. He...I don't know what he did to Ben with the Force, but...it was something cruel. Jacen now, will go to any length to keep us from finding out things he doesn't want us to find out. It hurts. The old Jacen wore his heart on the sleeve of his jumpsuit. He told bad jokes—and I would take every unenthusiastic remark I made about them back if I had known this would happen—and loved animals.
Jacen means well. I can feel that. But somehow that doesn't soften the blow of everything he's done during the Swarm War. I know he hurt Tahiri. It hurts to realize that she's still broken, no matter how well she hides it. I don't know exactly what happened, but somehow Jacen landed Tahiri on Dagobah. It makes me seethe, sometimes. After Anakin died, it seems like Tahiri took his place as the little sibling, someone to love and protect. This new Jacen can't love anyone, and he's...overprotective. He goes too far, I think. I heard about the holos of Anakin Skywalker. I didn't see them, but I heard what happened. The parallels between him and Jacen are obvious. It scares me. A lot of things scare me now.
But that's the Solo family for you, isn't it? We can't get anything right, no matter how the galaxy sees it.
Mom—Mother—Mom comes in. She visits a lot. Maybe they finally realized the truth about Jacen? That's a small hope, though. No matter how obvious he is, it wouldn't matter. He has everyone wrapped around his little finger.
Tenel Ka is in denial, I think. She's still in love with the academy Jacen, the used-to-be Jacen. Maybe it's all that time she's spending in that palace of hers, but she's not Tenel Ka anymore. The old Tenel Ka would have seen through this and pushed him away. They still love each other, I know, but it's not the kind of love most people have. They're more in love with who the other used to be, and they can't accept that. Tenel Ka visited me a few weeks ago, just for a day, and being a Queen Mother is obviously taking a toll on her Jedi skills. I read her like a beginner's holonovel.
Mom looks tired, and sits down near the bed and touches my hair. She speaks softly and I can't make out what she's saying. I catch the phrase, "Jaina, my baby girl," and somehow that makes me want to cry. Here I am, a Jedi of twenty-eight, and those words from my mom make my mouth tight and trembly. My eyelids flutter rapidly, trying to blink back tears. I don't know why I bother. She's seen me cry more than once, and there's no one else around.
I reach up for a hug. Mom leans in and hugs me back. I let the tears go.
I know I look like a child, but I want to get all the love I can before I—whoever I am—fades like everyone else.
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*bites lip*
Well? Constructive criticism is appreciated muchly, pwease. ;D
Jesus Freak 
