Reflections of Blood and Soot
This child is unworthy. I teach her only because I must.
She feels the Force, yes, but barely. The accursed Jedi would have trained her, she would have been strong enough for them. She is not strong enough for a Sith.
Not strong enough to be my replacement.
I wonder at this project of the Emporer's, this pet fancy, this idle nonsense. He can't intend this child to be a true apprentice, or I would have known nothing of her. She cannot be more than a minor tool to him. So why must I train her?
I wonder, until I see her age.
She was born when the Empire was three weeks old. She was born the same time my daughter would have been. She was born in my daughter's place.
I stop wondering. I understand, now.
She is just another way to increase my anger, to intensify my despair. He throws this child, this feeble reflection of my unborn daughter, in front of me, and hopes I will notice, hopes I will rage and scream and feel something, anything. His hopes are in vain.
I consider it, sometimes. I watch the girl as she struggles to learn, and hold up the mirror.
Perhaps she is not so unlike my unborn daughter. My daughter would not have red hair, of course, and she would have infinitely more talent than this upstart, but perhaps there are similarities. My daughter would certainly have her tenacity, her determination. My daughter would certainly have her courage.
Sometimes, when I consider this, I feel a moment's sorrow for this girl, this infinitely inferior girl. She will never be more than a pawn in this galaxy. She belongs to the Emperor, and she always will. She will never be anything important. For a moment, I feel sorrow, but it always passes. However similar she is to my dead and gone child, in the end, she is nothing to me. She is another task, another monotonous duty to fulfill.
Just another duty, no more pleasant than the last, and certainly no more painful. Only another duty.
