New York, 1997
A nine year old girl named Mara Jade sits on a hard plastic chair in a hospital while gentling brushing a Barbie ballerina. Inside the hospital room doctors are performing surgery on her great-uncle Sheev Palpatine. She's resisting the growing impulse to barge into the room. Great uncle says she's a lady and ladies always do the proper thing, even if the rest of the world doesn't know what that means. A nurse asks Mara for her parent's phone numbers, they can stay in work for all she cares. Great uncle needs family support, not nuisances who'll criticize him for getting hit by lightning while driving. Her parents are more concerned with their careers than raising a child so great uncle is the one who watches over Mara every day. She got the role of Clara in her ballet recital when she was seven, to celebrate great uncle went to a toymaker and ordered a custom Barbie ballerina, with red hair just like hers. Mommy accused him of spoiling her and keeping her a child, at least uncle Sheev is around to spoil her! Just for that, she'll keep the doll forever and ever. Mara played Clara for a whole week, mom and dad failed to attend a single show. He'll be fine, no doubt about it. Great uncle will spend a month or two on a wheelchair, she'll nurse him back to health and he'll host their special tea parties in which the Emperor kisses every inch of her body, or as he calls it "bestowing my favor upon the fairest of Maidens". Maybe he can explain why she's not supposed to tell anyone about their game when he gets better. It's not like her parents ever ask what they do together. Those simpleton laborers have the basic intelligence to acknowledge she is in capable hands. According to great uncle, grandma's natural grace and intellect skipped a generation in the family, she believes him beyond any doubt. Sheev Palpatine is an Emperor among men, nothing stops him. She repeats that mantra over and over again as the hours pass and the doctors don't come out. He has to recover, the Emperor is immortal! Un-rivaled in this measly earth! After what seems an eternity but was only six hours one surgeon steps out of the room. She smoothens the wrinkles in her skirt and walks towards him, her calm demeanor expertly hiding the desperation underneath. When grandmother Satine was alive, she taught her that it's important to look your best even when you feel your worst. "Hysterical sobbing deforms the face and leaves your weakness out in the open" she said. Courtesy armors the spirit and beautifies you in front of the world, that is the mark of a real woman. She dons her coat of arms, it serves her well as the doctor calmly explains that Sheev Palpatine will not live past the hour. He lets her in so they can say their goodbyes. Next to the Emperor, machines beep on their distorted notes. The face she loves is wrapped with gauze. Irrelevant, let his splendour be blocked from all undeserving plebeian eyes. She is his and he is hers alone.
" Come closer, my lady" he beckons, his voice tired in a way she's never heard before. She runs to him, she would fly if she could. There is nothing she can deny him, lest his Grace be forced to rely on underlings. He gathers his fading strenght to press his hands onto hers. So loving, even as death saps his presence away from her. His head turns to face her, she hones all her focus on him. Nothing else matters more than this, their last moment together. No power on hell, heaven or earth will change that. They can chop off her legs and she'll still pay attention to him. Mortality will not grant them much longer.
"Listen carefully my darling Hand, your grandmother feared a life of spinsterhood. As a result she settled for an oafish husband and produced that ode to stupidity you are obliged to call Father. By work of providence, her gifts passed on to you. The Jade's family shining exemption from the mediocrity they so love. Your father wed a scullery maid and sired a nymph, you must find a man of legend so that you may give birth to a God. Only then will our family's blood be cleansed from all impurity. Will you carry out my bidding, dear one?"
She swears it shall be so, honored to be chosen for preserving his legacy. By state law Jade is her surname, but it will be the Kryze and Palpatine names she will uphold. He smiles at her as his heart stops beating. Medics hastily push her aside as they work to keep him alive. Electricity is sent in shocking blows to his chest. All for naught, Sheev Palpatine departs to enter a new reality. She pictures him as an angel in Heaven, God sends him to the everlasting flames. Later that day, the oaf's spawn and the scullery maid come to pick her up and cremate the Emperor's shell. In the haze of their self-centered lives, they never find out about the "tea parties".The former senator's corpse is still grinning.
