Like Her Mother Before Her
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Author: Moi
Genre: Angst
Keywords?????
Time: Post-Legacy
Characters: Tenel Ka, cameos by Jacen, Allana, Jaina, Isolder, and Teneniel
Summary: Tenel Ka goes a little insane.
Notes: I'm experimenting with insanity, so tell me if it's working out or not.

As Tenel Ka stared into the drink before her, she tried to clear her emotions. There is no emotion, there is peace. That was part of what the Force told her. The other parts were that Jacen was dead and the wine before her was poisoned.

"Queen Mother?' asked the sole servant in the opulent quarters.

"Leave us. There has been a disturbance in the Force and we need to recover," ordered the former Jedi.

"As you wish, your majesty." The servant bowed before exiting and gently closing the door behind him, inviting in an eerie silence.

As Tenel Ka's strong fingers curled around the crimson goblet, her granite-gray eyes landed on a Holo of Isolder. Without you on the throne, your cousins will stage a civil war.

"You are dead, Father. Leave me." Tenel Ka muttered as she swirled the crimson liquid in her chalice. She reached to Jacen to help stabilize the insanity that had been building since her crowning, but found only anguish and emptiness instead. The Force was merely reminding her of what she had lost.

Isolder, or rather, whatever Tenel Ka was hearing in her head, refused to leave. No one is born free of the burden of expectations. You must rule.

"I have ruled. Now leave." The Queen Mother sighed. She had always considered herself a logical and methodical warrior queen, and yet there she was, battling not against monsters but against herself. She refused to believe that the voice came from anywhere outside her mind, half wanting to acknowledge that the Hapans where driving her insane but too stubborn to accept such a notion. Still, she could not drink the wine, for that meant leaving the throne empty and paving the path for a bloody, endless war between her nobles where Battle Dragon would tear apart Battle Dragon with ferocious turbolaser fire.

Long ago, Tenel Ka had wondered if she would reshape herself to the expectations of her foes and despite the decades, the woman found no definite answer. She was a woman of action, not philosophy, and yet she was questioning. Perhaps Jacen's real death shook her too much. Her eyes then landed on a set of Dathomiri leathers that was faded beyond repair.

When did you last have your leathers made? Teneniel's voice echoed.

"You are in the spirit world, Mother. You cannot possibly disturb me."

Mother, I think Lady Rei wants you dead. Allana's voice resounded in Tenel Ka's head, bringing back memories from the days before the heir left for Ossus. The Queen Mother wanted to attempt to hoot her daughter out of her head as well, but was only frustrated over the fact that she could not use death as a reason. She then reminded herself the purpose of her seclusion and brought the goblet to her lips. However, just before the liquid could touch her tongue, multitudes of voices rose to protest the act.

Just as there were people who wanted her dead for the selfish ends, so were there people who wished to see her alive so that she could reward them. Tenel Ka was often disgusted with the people she was born to serve.

Poison. They did not even give her the dignity of a final battle. This time, the most prominent voice in the chaotic cacophony of Tenel Ka's mind was her own. Poison. That substance also swirled in the glass in the current Queen Mother's hands, but this time, things were different. Tenel Ka had fought her battles with anti-Jedi rebels and was unfortunate enough to live. This Queen Mother, if she was to take the poison, would have the dignity of choosing her own death just as she had been able to fight her last battle.

At least you will not be alone.

Neither will you. Jaina seemed to stand right beside the Dathomiri queen as the Sword's voice rose above everybody else's.

"Perhaps that is a fact." Tenel Ka delved into the Force for strength despite her usual avoidance of the energy field. She groaned when the Force seemed to amplify the chaos in her head. The woman began to look outside the bedroom window and into the ethereal gardens for peace, but shook her head and turned her gaze back. Tenel Ka was not one to look at scenery, nor was she one to go insane, nor was she one to mourn irrationally for extended periods.

For endless moments, Tenel Ka found herself torn between drinking from the cup of death and pouring the liquid into the refresher sink.

Choose and act. That's what Vergere told me. No choice will be made for you and I'll be with you either way. Jacen's Holo seemed to move as he urged. There were too many Holos beside the bed. Too many voices in Tenel Ka's head. Millions of memories flashed past the granite-gray eyes at random as garbled voices piled upon the pressure inside Tenel Ka's skull threatened to make it explode. However, one voice rose above and hushed all of the rest temporarily. It was her daughter.

Come on, Mother. Don't you trust me? A teenaged Allana seemed to say from a neatly framed Holo.

"I am alone and my battle is over. Father, I am sorry to disappoint you." Tenel Ka adamantly countered Jaina and agreed with Allana. "And yes, Allana, I do trust you."

The weakening queen began to say more, but realized that added words would be redundant and thus unnecessary wastes of breath. There was no need to trust Allana with the task of keeping secrets because the young woman would never admit that Tenel Ka Djo would drink poison on purpose.

In the past, ever since her crowning, Tenel Ka lived to be Jedi, keep her nobles from slaughtering each other. For most of those years, she had Jacen and Isolder for support. Now all was lost and different. Tenel Ka was no longer needed on the throne because Allana was ready to rule. There was no more point in being Jedi because she left the Jedi Order. Most of all, there was no more point in living because both of her pillars were dead.

Tenel Ka knew and tried to deny that the horrible moment of poisoning was coming for many years thanks to visions from the Force, which she tried to shut off, but when it finally became imminent, it was not as she had expected at all. At the end, there was no denial, only embrace. A rare smile touched her lips as she welcomed the sweet taste of the mixture of wine and death on her tongue. Unlike most of her smiles, the last one remained as she slumped into position similar to that which she found her mother in three decades ago and as her consciousness began to fade.

The Queen Mother's vision blurred and when it refocused momentarily, she saw a young Jacen floating before her with a ghost of the jungles of Yavin in the background.

Come on, Tenel Ka! Jacen extended a hand, his brandy brown eyes staring boldly into Tenel Ka's, begging her to join him. As her vision began to blur again and as her pulse violently destabilized, the former Jedi took her lover's hand and leaped into the jungle. For the first time in more than thirty years, Tenel Ka saw herself with both arms and turned to see her crumpled physical form sitting in the same chair that she discovered Teneniel in. She was glad to die like her mother before her.

-

Hours later, a woman in her early twenties appeared before the crowd that has gathered around the palace. A man who appeared to be two or three years younger than her flanked her silently with a datapad in his hand.

"People of Hapes, as we all know, we found our mother poisoned. Before I, Allana, her only daughter, crown myself Queen Mother, I must inform you of progress on our investigation. Speak, Prince Anakin," commanded the young woman at the end of her speech.

"As you command." Obediently, Anakin stepped up to take a place at his sister's side and spoke. "As head of the investigation into my mother's death, I declare that all evidence points to the Ni'Korish extremists."