CHAPTER V
Rey stood in the glassforest, and slowly the visions came to her, slowly falling into place. Visions from the past.
In the first, there was a charismatic man addressing a large room. This was the senate chamber on Coruscant. He was talking about something called the Clone Wars, and giving some politician's speech about peacetime. He was introduced as Chancellor Palpatine.
Palpatine? Rey thought, Is this Sheev Palpatine? It must be. I don't think the galaxy ever had another chancellor with that name. But he looks normal! This must be before his famous deformity happened.
And with the breeze of the glassforest, Rey found herself in the next vision.
In the second vision, she saw the man's office. Palpatine was speaking with the Jedi Council; there was tension between them, but the Jedi were courteous, and addressed him as Chancellor. Once left alone, he began transmitting a hologram and started talking to another man, named Count Dooku. Dooku in turn addressed Palpatine as Darth Sidious.
It is him! Rey thought, The same Palpatine who was secretly a Sith Lord and the galaxy's greatest monster!
The two men discussed a plan: the Separtist Droid Army was going to sweep into the Republic capital the next day and kidnap Palpatine as a hostage. Count Dooku insisted that Gen. Grievous and his strike team would not harm Palpatine as their hostage. Palpatine in turn insisted that this plan would lure the Jedi out so that Dooku would finally get his revenge.
After the transmission ended, Palpatine then opened a private door in his office, and there was a young woman, Portia. She was very sad, but flirted with Palpatine.
Rey slowly realized that she was his mistress. Palpatine was an older man (65 years old, to be exact-Rey could feel it), and she was very young, but she didn't seem to care. After all, he was the most powerful man in the galaxy, and this mistress was attracted to his power. Rey reached deeper into the Force, and sensed that her name was Portia. Even more, Portia was pregnant, but she was too scared to tell him yet.
And with the breeze of the glassforest, Rey found herself in the next vision.
In the third vision, Rey saw the same senate chamber, but a different speech was happening. Only a few months had passed.
"The Jedi Rebellion has been foiled!" a hooded figure addressed the crowd, and Rey realized it was Palpatine, but it was after his deformity. He now looked like the Emperor Palpatine she had long heard described.
"The Republic will be reorganized into the first Galactic Empire, for a safe and secure society!" he bellowed, followed by thunderous applause.
And Rey suddenly pinpointed something else happening somewhere in the building: Portia was running off with her newborn. Portia was mortified of Palpatine, of what her former lover had become, and in her arms she held a swaddling baby, a boy named Cos. She ran because she didn't want him to know the truth.
And with the breeze of the glassforest, Rey found herself in the next vision.
In the fourth vision, it was a few years later, and Portia was living on some dingy planet. She lived in a small dwelling with Cos, a six-year-old impoverished boy. Outside the streets were manned by Stormtroopers. Everyone was miserable, living under a dictatorship.
Suddenly Stormtroopers came barging in, breaking down the door.
"You're her?" they asked, "The Emperor's former paramour? You've been in hiding."
"I don't know what you mean," Portia began, but she was a bad liar. She turned to her son, "Cos! Run!"
And in that moment, Portia was brutally murdered! But the little boy ran!
The chase continued out into the streets; the little boy was nimble and knew how to navigate. Rey could sense his sadness at losing his mother, but he had no time to process this. He ran and was able to escape.
And with the breeze of the glassforest, Rey found herself in the next vision.
In the fifth vision, Rey saw a cantina on some remote planet. It was an uncharted place in the middle of nowhere. There was a lot of commotion about something: the second Death Star had just been destroyed. Even more importantly, Emperor Palpatine was onboard and has now died. Everyone was talking about what this meant, how the Empire would now collapse and the dictatorship was finally over. But one man was not so happy. It was Cos, now a 19-year-old. He looked familiar to Rey, but she couldn't quite place him.
"It's over," a friend of his said to him, "You don't have to hide anymore."
"Now that he's dead, they'll come looking for me," Cos said, "In fact, even more people might want me dead."
"What are you talking about?" the friend asked, "Hardly anyone knew about you in the first place. You barely even looked like him. Plus he was what, 88 years old? No one could connect you to him."
"They will," Cos said.
And with the breeze of the glassforest, Rey found herself in the next vision.
The sixth vision confirmed what Rey had started to suspect. Cos was now older (34 years old, to be exact-Rey could feel it) and he had grown to look exactly how Rey remembered him. And he was talking to his pregnant wife, named Cala. Rey knew the face of her father when he was sad and the face of her mother when she looked frustrated. She had seen their faces so many times.
"How could you have kept this from me all this time?" Cala asked, "You told me your father was just some drifter!"
"I've kept it a secret my whole life," Cos said defensively, "I wanted to pretend it wasn't true, to avoid being killed! I thought the persecution was finally over, but now there's a bounty on my head! They've found out the truth."
"How?"
"Mandalorians are the best bounty hunters in the galaxy for a reason."
"What about our child?" Cala said, pointing to her belly.
"Bounty hunters will come after him or her too. We need to keep you safe."
And with the breeze of the glassforest, Rey found herself in the last vision.
The final vision was the one she knew was coming. Her parents were abandoning her on Naragna. They were making the same expressions she had seen them make so many times before.
"She'll be safe here," Cos said.
And as the starship set off, leaving the infant Rey alone, it entered the atmosphere, where it was immediately attacked up by another ship.
Bounty hunters. Manadalorians. On board, Cos and Cala saw their fate, then held each other tightly, before Cos pulled out a small flask he kept in his boot. It was poison.
With quick sips, the two committed suicide. The Mandalorians would take their bodies and claim the bounty, never becoming aware of the child's existence.
The visions ended, and Rey was once more just a person alone in the glassforest, taking all this in.
At long last, she knew where she had come from. Emperor Palpatine had been her grandfather.
History's greatest monster, a dictator who had murdered millions-and she was his only living kin.
