THE RIGHT THING
'Don't pretend you love him. If you loved him, you would have kept him.' -Count Dooku, Yoda: Dark Rendezvous by Sean Stewart
'You (…) had everything a person could desire and you gave him up. The Jedi arrived like beggars on your doorstep and asked for your firstborn, your heir, your precious Baby…and you gave him up. You sent him away to a distant planet, (…) and let them lock him up in the Temple (…) and now you have the impudence to come here and say that you loved him? Loved him?
'Mother? Son? Love? You don't know the meaning of the words.' -Count Dooku, Yoda: Dark Rendezvous by Sean Stewart
Every Jedi is a child his parents decided they could live without. -Count Dooku, Yoda: Dark Rendezvous by Sean Stewart
The baby lies in my arms. Surprisingly, it – sorry, she is not crying. They usually do that, once they leave the familiar warmth of their mother's arms. They howl and scream and wail, until I'm forced to do some discreet mind influencing to make them silent. But this baby doesn't. She looks at me with those big brown eyes full of innocence. It's like she asking me Who are you? or What do you want? with just a look alone.
My heart feels like breaking.
Are we doing the right thing? Taking her away from her family?
There are two young boys peering round the doorway, looks of awe and fear on their faces. They catch my eye and with squeaks of fright and surprise, pull their heads back. I can hear them scamper down the hallway and back into their room.
Their father scowls at sound, as though they had interrupted some highly private ceremony. I wonder if he had told his sons about our coming. I wonder if they know that they will never see their sister again.
The mother stands in a corner, looking lost and alone, so terribly alone. Her husband had tried to put an arm around her shoulder after she had handed her child over to me. She had shrugged his hands off. Sometimes you just don't want comfort, even if grief is killing you inside. Sometimes you just want to hold on to that grief, because to let go of it means that you let go whatever you're grieving about.
Her child.
I am not human, but I've lived around them long enough to recognize and read their body language.
She hates me. No, not just me. Us. All of us. She hates the Jedi.
She looks up, and our eyes inadvertently meet. The gaze lasts only a moment, but my thoughts are confirmed. She hates us. I don't blame her.
I've just taken her child away. Her only daughter by the looks of it. And she doesn't just hate us for that. She hates us because we exist. If there had never been a Jedi Order, then she would not have had to make this terrible choice, she would not have to feel the pain of losing her child and she would not have to place her daughter into the arms of a stranger, let them walk away with her, never to see her again.
The look that she shoots at her husband tells me that now, she hates him too. It was probably his idea. They are poor, and the girl is just an extra mouth to feed. Or maybe it's because she's female. I know that some humans favour their sons over their daughters and I've never understood why. It makes me glad that I'm not one.
My species treats all the same. And thinking of this, I don't think I've ever been as proud of it as I am now.
My colleague, who's human, dark skinned and shorter than me, shifts his weight uneasily. I know that he would rather be anywhere else in this galaxy than here.
I feel the same way.
To tell the truth, I hate this too.
I hate the devastated looks the mothers give me when they hand me their child. I hate the crying and wailing, not just the child's but also that of the mother. I hate their anger and hate and disgust. I hate their looks of baby-napper and child-stealer and cradle-robber.
I hate my own anger and shame towards my Order. And I hate the Order because we do this. I hate the Council for making me do this.
A Jedi does not hate, but in these times, I just don't care.
Looking at the baby in my arms, I wonder if she will one day hate like I do. I wonder if she will one day stand facing parents with their baby in her arms and see their hate and find herself hate too.
I find myself wishing, praying to the Force that she will never, ever, have to do that.
The mother starts to sob quietly; her shoulders shake as she buries her face in her hands. Her husband goes over to her and holds her close and this time she doesn't move away.
My throat is so thick I cannot swallow and breathing has suddenly become very hard.
The two boys come creeping out of their room and seeing their mother crying, they rush over to her and hug her, clutching her longs skirts, trying to comfort her yet still peering at us with curiosity and awe.
I can't stand it anymore. We have overstayed our visit and it is time to leave.
I clear my throat to get their attention, and suddenly they're all watching me, frozen like animals caught it the headlights of a speeder.
I softly thank them, and promise them to keep their child safe. Empty promises. A Jedi is never safe.
The mother shoots me a devastated look of contempt, one that tells me that I've ruined her live forever. Then she runs out of the room.
The boys and their father stand rooted to the spot, watching us. I ask the man if he really wants to do this, if he is certain that he wants to give his child away to become a guardian of peace and bring peace and order to the galaxy and so on.
For a moment he hesitates, looking uncertain, then the look hardens and he says Yes, I am. Thank you for coming. and I know that he is silently begging us to leave and be gone, and to take the child and never come back again.
I turn to the boys and ask them if they want to say goodbye. The younger one shyly retreats behind his fathers legs. His older brother however comes slowly nearer and extends a hand to his sister. As her tiny fingers curl around his own larger one, I see a sad smile flit across his face and then it is gone and he has pulled his hand away and is running out of the room, his younger brother trailing behind him.
I bow to the man. Thank you, sir. May the Force be you and your family.
And then we are out at last, thank the Force, and I can breath properly again. I look down at the child and I realise that she is asleep. Good.
Now in the ship I am alone and I can think and cry in peace. The baby is sleeping on my bunk and my colleague is in the cockpit.
I cry and then I dry my tears and lean against the wall to think.
Did my own parents have to watch their child being taken away by strangers? Or was I an orphan, alone and unwanted, until the Order found me and made me one of their own?
I don't know. I don't even know if I want to know. Sometimes ignorance can be bliss.
Yet sometimes I wonder what my life would have been if I had never been brought to the Temple. Would I have had siblings, like my tiny charge does, but will never know? Would my parents have loved me and hugged me and kissed me and sang lullabies to make me sleep? Would I have gone to a normal school? Would I have done things that a normal teenage female would have done; talk about clothes, and boys and celebrities? Would I have fallen in love? Would I have married? Would I have had children, instead of Padawans?
So many questions.
If my parents had really, really, really loved me, like a parent should, would they have given me away?
Or had I been just another mouth to feed? Or had I been a useless burden? Or had I been a freak, to be gotten rid of as soon as possible? Or maybe I might have been an honour to my family, a Force-sensitive child, a Jedi?
I laugh silently to myself. A Jedi cannot bring honour to their family because they have no family to bring honour to.
And if parents really loved their children they would never, ever, even consider giving their child, their treasured flesh-and-blood away to total strangers. Would they?
And yet they call us to come and test their child, they lay their children in our hands and say that they love their child, for they are giving it a better future, our future, a future they can never give their child themselves.
Love? Is this love?
There is no glory being a Jedi. We live, we serve and we die. We cannot love, we cannot live.
Our life is service.
If parents really do love their Force-sensitive child, they will never call us and if any Jedi comes enquiring they will barricade the door and hide their baby and refuse to even listen.
But if parents can call us, despite the many light years away from us, despite the high prices of Holo Net communications to the core, to take their child away, then maybe they don't deserve to keep their baby.
If parents can put their child in our arms, knowing that they will never see it again, knowing that it may be hated and despised and that it may one day die alone on some Force forsaken planet, then the child is probably better of without such parents.
If parents can give away their offspring to the Jedi, then taking them away is the right thing to do.
Usually I absolutely adore the Jedi, but after reading Sean Stewart's Yoda: Dark Rendezvous, I sorta become sympathetic with Dooku, seeing a side of him that isn't some twisted, power-hungry Sith nutcase.
And he's right about some things. If your parents really loved you, would they have given you away? It's all very sad, really. (Sigh)
As always, read and review.
May the Force be with you, always.
P.S. If Dooku's your favourite character or if you like Qui and Dooku fics (NON SLASH) or if you're just looking for a good read, check out charmissjess's stuff. I think you will find her on my favourite author list.