"What do you want?" Allana asked as she backed away from the ghost before her in fear. "Why are you here?"
"I sense doubt in you, child," Vergere's spirit said. "The same doubt I felt in your father before I helped him see the true nature of the Force."
"You led him away from what was true about the Force!" Allana nearly hollered. "You fed him lies, telling him that the Force didn't have any sides, and you almost brought the rest of the Jedi Order with him. And now, because of you, he fell to the dark side, and now my daddy's dead!"
Vergere's ghost looked at Allana as if she had a point. "Everything I told him was a lie," she said cryptically.
"That's right," Allana said, as if that was reassuring. "Everything you told him was a lie."
"Everything I tell you is a lie," Vergere said.
"Everything you tell me is a lie," Allana repeated, as if she were a weak-minded individual under a mind-trick.
Vergere's ghost was silent for a while before she spoke again.
"It wasn't I who led your father down the wrong path, Allana," Vergere explained. "As your great-uncle Luke told you, it was when he saw you standing next to this Dark Man on the Throne of Balance. He fought against the flow of the Force to prevent that from happening. Admirable intention, but nevertheless, foolish, especially when it saw to the release of Abeloth.
"But while it's true that I was indefinitely responsible for your father's change of view regarding the Force, it was ultimately he who had decided his own fate. Yes, Lumiya had cemented his fate when she lied to him that he could save the galaxy from destruction.
"However, one thing that I want to tell you is that your father could have been saved if your friends and family tried hard enough."
Allana looked at Vergere's ghost dubiously. "What do you mean?"
Again, Vergere's spirit was silent for a moment. "Tell me, Allana, what exactly was the corruption present in the idea of the Potentium, or the Unifying Force?"
"That there is no light and dark side, just as you preached," Allana stated.
"And that is the corruption?"
Allana nodded wordlessly and confidently.
"Is that all?" Vergere's spirit asked.
Allana suddenly looked less than certain. "Yes." Her tone mirrored that of her expression.
"Then you have absolutely no argument to support the ideas espoused by your great-uncle," Vergere said. "And I'm going to tell you why."
"Everything you tell me is a lie," Allana said with a shake of her head. "Why should I continue to listen to anything by you?"
"Because the doubt in your mind regarding your father's fate will continue to linger until the day you die," Vergere said. "And I'm here to help you to settle those doubts once and for all."
"Allana!"
The little girl turned to the exit of her bedchamber, where her mother's voice came from. She turned back around to face Vergere's ghost, only to find that she was gone.
Allana turned back again in time for her mother to enter her room with a worried expression.
"Are you alright?" Tenel Ka asked. "I felt through your Force-presence that you were distressed. Was there something going on in here?"
Knowing that lying to her mother would prove no use, Allana looked at Tenel Ka and said, "Vergere was here."
"What?" Tenel Ka asked. "What do you mean?"
"Her spirit just talked to me," Allana said. "I was a little scared at first, but after a while, she was just talking."
"Talking about what?" Tenel Ka asked.
"About the Force, and about Daddy," Allana answered reluctantly.
"Oh," Tenel Ka said. "What did she say?"
"That Daddy's fall was his own fault, and that she wasn't to blame," Allana said.
"I see," Tenel Ka stated. After a thoughtful moment, she asked, "Why did she contact you?"
"She felt doubt coming from me," Allana said.
"Doubt about what?"
"About what happened to Daddy."
Tenel Ka looked at her daughter in confusion. "Your daddy died when Darth Caedus was born. And even he died at Aunt Jaina's hand."
"I know about that," Allana said. "But, tell me, how was it that you knew that the Imperial Moffs' nanobots would attack us?"
Tenel Ka fell silent then. "I felt it through the Force, Allana," she said after a moment.
"Oh," Allana said, as if she just got the answer to a mildly difficult math question. "I see. Okay then. Hopefully, that'll make Vergere stay away from now on."
"I hope so," Tenel Ka said warily. She then backed out through the door. "Well... have a good afternoon, child." With that, she was out the door and it closed in front of her.
When Allana felt her mother's presence disappear, she felt Vergere reappear behind her.
"No wonder your father fell in love with your mother," Vergere said as Allana kept her back to the ghost. "She lied through omission, a trait that any Sith would find impressive."
Allana turned back to the spirit. "What was she keeping from me?"
"The fact that it was your father, Darth Caedus, who told her about the nanobot attack against the two of you," Vergere answered evenly.
Those words sent a crushing blow into Allana's being. She felt herself go weak in the knees as the revelation quickly sunk in. The Chume'da allowed herself to collapse to her hindquarters as her face dropped completely in shock.
"Yes," Vergere said smoothly. "You now know. Your father was never dead. At least, not until your aunt killed him. His very last act was one of love, of selflessness, even though it meant the end of his life. In his final moments, he had renounced the 'dark side,' if only temporarily, to save you and your mother. And for his trouble, your aunt, the Sword of the Jedi, one of your heroes, killed him.
"So tell me, Allana, what are you going to do with this?"
Allana shook herself out the very reverie that Vergere described word for word and looked up at the spirit. "Everything you tell me is a lie," she repeated, as if that would console her.
"And why is that?" Vergere's spirit asked.
Allana ground her teeth in determination. "Because everything that comes out of that ghostly mouth of yours is just a deceit. A trick to lure me away from the light side just as you did my daddy. Well, I won't let you."
"You cannot banish me back into the Netherworld of the Force, you know," Vergere pointed out. "Only I can do that for myself. You will have better luck removing your own heart and living through the experience than being able to rid yourself of me."
"Shut up!" Allana shouted. "Leave me alone! I won't let you make me into a Sith!"
"That was never my intention, just as it was never my intention to do that to your father, Allana," Vergere replied, ever so calmly. "Oh, and by the way, your mother and the guards of this Palace cannot hear your shouts, nor can your mother feel the emotional turmoil brewing in you. I have just used the Force to shield this bedchamber from both sound and from your emotions."
Realizing the trouble that she was in, Allana turned for the door and attempted to leave, only to find herself rooted in place where she stood.
"Ah-ah-ah," Vergere's spirit said as she wagged a finger at the Chume'da. "You aren't going anywhere, Allana. I have much to teach you."
"You can't convince me of your Sith ways!" Allana shouted, managing to turn back to the spirit.
"I won't try to, because I was never a Sith," Vergere said. "Oh, sure, I have encountered Sith in my time, such as Lumiya and the Dark Man who your father saw you stand next to. But I was never one of them. Lumiya was nothing more than a deceitful witch who twisted my words to corrupt your father. I taught him what he learned so he could save the Yuuzhan Vong, and, more importantly, the galaxy, and to widen the Jedi Order's dogmatic view of themselves and of the Force. But because of the vision that he saw of you, standing next to the Dark Man, he strayed from his path, and thanks to Lumiya, he fell into his own darkness and corruption, and led the Jedi back into the same narrow-mindedness that once destroyed Yoda's Order.
"But, then again, as I have said, your father could have been saved, if your friends and family had tried hard enough."
By now, Allana had calmed down and looked at Vergere's spirit with curiosity now. "How could my father have been saved?"
Vergere's spirit gave the birdlike equivalent of a smirk. "In due time, Allana, in due time. But first, I must educate you, not exactly in the same vein as your father, but I believe that I will get my points across all the same."
"I won't be alone like Daddy was," Allana said. "You can't keep me in here forever. I will be with Mommy, and I'll see Grandma, Grandpa, Aunt Jaina, and everyone else."
"Oh, I can wait," Vergere said. "I had waited several decades for the Yuuzhan Vong to invade this galaxy so your father could be selected to save them from themselves. I can wait for you."
"I'll tell them about you," Allana threatened. "They'll help me stop from falling like Daddy did."
"You will not be able to do so," Vergere told her. "I will see to that, my dear. They'll never know what's 'wrong' with you, as they would think of it. In fact, they will be encouraged. Your grandmother's fears about falling like her eldest son will be allayed, and your ignorant mother will be none the wiser, as she always is."
"What are you saying about Mommy?" Allana asked.
"Oh, what I have to say about your mother, I shall save for when I show you how your father could have been helped from his darkness," Vergere said. "But for now, I must ask you this basic question: What is the difference between the Jedi and the Sith, Allana?"
"The Jedi want to protect the galaxy, the Sith want to rule it," Allana answered.
"In theory, yes," Vergere said. "However, that is not always the case for either side. But, since I'm not a supporter of the Sith, we will just ignore them, and you can go on assuming that ruling the galaxy is what they all want to do. So, with that in mind, would I necessarily fit the definition of a Sith, when my last act was self-sacrifice, just as your father's was?"
"Lumiya sacrificed herself to protect the truth that Daddy was the one who killed Great-Aunt Mara, and Lumiya was a Sith," Allana countered. "Just because you're a Sith, you can still sacrifice yourself for what you believe in. Just as you and Daddy did."
"Lumiya did not sacrifice herself," Vergere said. "Oh, sure, she took the blame for your great-aunt's death, and while she was certainly prepared for death herself when your great-uncle killed her, she never really sacrificed herself. She did think that she could win against Luke Skywalker, you know, even if she knew that her chances were slim. What your father and I did, on the other hand, was pure sacrifice. I relinquished my life when I crashed that starfighter on Ebaq Nine to wipe out those Yuuzhan Vong so that your father, your aunt, and their friends could all survive. And Jacen relinquished his life just so he could warn Tenel Ka about the doom that you faced with her."
"Even to a child like me, your argument still sounds flimsy," Allana said. "It still sounds like Lumiya sacrificed herself."
Vergere shook her head in disappointment. "You will see just how great the differences are, Allana," Vergere said. "But, with that out of the way, it is the Jedi who I want to talk about now.
"You see, one of the reasons that Yoda's Order, which I was admittedly part of before I departed the galaxy to join the Yuuzhan Vong for their invasion, had fallen was because the Force itself had fallen into darkness."
"Which shows that there's a dark side after all," Allana said.
"No," Vergere said. "No, that is not so. You see, as I told your father, it is not that the Force has sides, but rather, it is our own sides that affect the Force."
"So you're telling me that because two Sith had existed at the time Yoda's Order fell," Allana said, "that the Force had fallen into darkness?"
"Well, no, not really," Vergere said. "You see, it was through the gradual accumulation of individual Sith darkness, from Darth Bane all the way to Palpatine and his apprentices. And since the Jedi believed that the Sith were extinct, they fell into complacency so that the darkness of each Sith, from Bane onward, could corrupt the Force."
"Which is why the Jedi aren't complacent today," Allana countered. "The Sith are still numerous today, even after the Lost Tribe was nearly wiped out at Coruscant. It's so the Jedi and Sith can keep the Force in balance, so Abeloth won't return."
"Oh, Abeloth will return, just not in your lifetime," Vergere refuted. "Or in the lifetimes of many of your descendants, Allana. But she will return. That is, unless the Dagger of Mortis can be found, but I digress. My point is this: between the Jedi and the Sith, there are many set and defined rules, rules that are guaranteed to cripple each of them at some point or another due to their inflexibility.
"The Sith had no choice but to reduce themselves to two at a time, so that they would not have to constantly betray each other at every turn. And the Jedi are sometimes too weak or even outright unwilling to solve problems because of their principles. And ironically enough, when they do tend to solve problems, it goes against their principles anyway, another major factor that led to the downfall of Yoda's Order, and believe me, it will happen to Luke Skywalker's Order one day."
"Everything you tell me is a lie," Allana growled. She refused to believe that Great-Uncle Luke's Jedi Order will fall.
Vergere committed the birdlike equivalent of a smirk. "I said that to your father many times during his education under my hand. Do you know what he took away from that meaning?"
Allana shook her head impatiently.
"It means that the truth is greater than what any words can express," Vergere said. "So, what I tell you, is smaller than what truly is. And when you take that into account, you will understand the real difference between Lumiya's 'sacrifice', and the real sacrifices that your father and I took. And you understand even that, you will see how and why Luke Skywalker's Order will fall, just as Yoda's Order fell."
Allana still wasn't convinced. "Go back to the Netherworld of the Force," she growled.
Vergere tilted her head. "I believe that will be enough for today. I will see you later, Allana." With that, Vergere's spirit faded into the Force.
And Allana, though she still didn't believe in most of Vergere's words, suddenly felt a lot more enlightened and...
Light.
The light that is you, she heard Vergere speak out from beyond.