By Kari Raines @ JadedAmida@aol.com
http://members.xoom.com/JadeSabre/starwars.html
Summary: On the day of her marriage to Luke Skywalker, Mara Jade looks back at the irony of her life. Please review! I love to know what people think. Love ya!
Disclaimer: Star Wars, Luke Skywalker, Emperor Palpatine, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Yoda all belong to George Lucas, Lucasfilm ltd., and Twentieth Century Fox. Mara Jade belongs to Timothy Zahn, Bantam Books, and Del Rey. I'm just borrowing them. Please don't sue me.
Who can tell what the future will hold? A Jedi, you say? Hardly. A Sith Lord? Don't make me laugh. My former master, the Sith who single-handedly brought down the so-called Old Republic, told me many things. He told me that one day I would possess and command powers so immense in scale that I could not comprehend the enormity of my strength. He told me that I would be more than a Dark Jedi, but a Dark Goddess--an Empress.
Of course, being young and stupid, I hung on his every word. He was, after all, the only father I ever knew. The fleeting images I retained of my birth parents were decayed and warped, distorted by time or the manipulation of Palpatine. The Force knows he could have been responsible.
Palpatine always was the clever one. He knew how to manipulate people by pure will and how to use them like pieces on a game board. And he created the rules as he went.
And then there was me. A Force-sensitive little red-headed, green-eyed girl who somehow managed to catch the attention of an Emperor. Maybe he really believed the things he told me. After all, his interest had to come from somewhere.
Or maybe the joke was on me. I served as his personal assassin and his undercover agent. I was The Emperor's Hand. I performed the duties that he orchestrated. But the other Imperials, the lowly minions, when seeing me at court, assumed I was nothing more than entertainment for our beloved and feared Emperor. I always scoffed at their ignorance. But maybe that's where the joke comes in--MAYBE I WAS SIMPLY ENTERTAINMENT AFTER ALL. Perhaps he laughed with them behind my back. I'll never know.
What I do know--what it's taken me years to believe--is that I was nothing more than a pawn myself. I thought I knew him--knew the way he manipulted people, never realizing that he might be manipulating me as well.
My salvation came, years after his death, in the form of a lone, lightsaber-wielding young man claiming to be the first of the new Jedi. My hatred for him was blinding. I blamed him for the death of the Emperor, while I should have been thanking him. He freed me from my bondage of slavery and gave me the chance for a new life--a life as a Jedi.
He brought me out of the dark and into the light. For the first time in my life, I am truly . . . happy.
Who would have thought? The man I once fantasized about murdering is now the man that I can't live without. So who can tell what the future will hold? Well, Palptine was right about one thing--since meeting Luke, I now possess and control powers so immense in scale that I cannot comprehend the enormity of my strength. But it is doubtful that this is what Palpatine meant. I am speaking of the power of the Light Side, and most importantly, the power of love.
Today, I, Mara Jade, the star pupil of Dark Lord of the Sith Palpatine, will wed Luke Skywalker, star pupil of Jedi Knights Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda.
What a glorious, ironic ending. I almost wish Palpatine were alive to witness this. The expression on his face would be priceless.
Finis