Title: The World Through Allana's Eyes

Characters: Jacen, Allana, Ocs

Summary: Jacen takes Allana as his apprentice, but there are a few twists.

Time: LOTF and beyond

Note: This is the companion piece to "I Can't Kill Her Just Yet". I don't know why I chose a slightly different style for this. I'm purposefully varying the tenses again since Allana, like her father, prefers to comment as things happen.

I'm Allana. Mama's the best queen ever and we live in a castle. My friends say it's weird that I don't have Daddy with me. So what? Grandpa's just like any of their daddies, but he's better.

There's a scary man in the castle. Mama says that he's Daddy. Maybe he is. Maybe he's not that bad, but I don't like his big, red sword.

The man keeps coming back and I don't really like him, so I just pretend to practice the things that the aunties---the iclan-sisters/i---taught me. This scary man keeps telling me that I was growing in the Force. Sometimes, this red-haired boy comes with him. There's that something about the boy that gave me the creeps.

Once, the man came and gave me this really scary look before he took out his red sword. He pointed it at my neck and I ran until I tripped over somebody's foot. He then hit this creepy-looking woman, who carried two throwing knives on her. I felt something horrible in the Force.

The man told me that I felt death and that I was going to be just like that woman, that he wanted to take me out himself. I don't want to feel death again, ever. I cried for Mama and she drove the man away. I hope he's not coming back.

There are now more guards in the palace and I can't go as many places as before. Mama says that it's all for keeping the bad man and the boy away.

I'm seven now and I'm going to Ossus so that I can be a Jedi. Jedi are the coolest people in the galaxy and Mama would have been one if she didn't become queen. I hope that I'll be able to stay a Jedi forever.

Everything was okay until I saw the bad man and the red-haired boy again. The boy's Ben, if I got it right.

My Masters are awesome; they're almost as neat as my mom. Then the man told them that he was taking me as his apprentice. According to my tutors from Hapes, he was going to spend more than half of his time teaching me things. I don't want him for a teacher. I like the Masters at Ossus Academy. I don't want him to take out his red sword and kill me with it.

He's taking me away from Ossus and he says that he's my father! So what if he is? He's nothing like my friends' daddies. The Force felt more like Daddy to me than him. He says that since I haven't been started on most of my lessons, he'll have an easy time killing me. I'm really scared because I don't see any places to run to or hide and he says that even if I do hide, he'll find me.

I'm thirteen now. I still don't like either Ben or my supposed father and I've had plenty of chances to run away, but I stayed. This probably sounds stupid, but I like the things Father is teaching me. He says that it's good that I'm scared of him and that I brood. I don't know if he's right.

The one thing that he tells me that I believe for sure is that I'm powerful. I'm already thirteen and I don't think I should be scared of him anymore. I bet I could take him out if I want to.

I'm in the training room right now because there's just too much on my mind. I need to beat something up. You see, Father just visited Hapes and he's steamed about how Mother kicked him out. He was pissed about that and tried to take it out on me. What did I have to do with him getting beat up sourly? It serves him right for causing trouble and if Mother could kick his butt, I can, too, once I learn all of her tricks.

I suppose that's the second reason I'm about to beat up this droid. Mother says that she practiced quite a bit when she was my age. She's also disappointed that I chose to stay with Father and I think that this choice drove a wedge between us. Can't she just be happy that I want to learn something?

Then again, I gotta admit, I'm scared and there are times when I'll give anything to pry Father off my back. It's particularly true when I feel as if he's going to kill me, and I think he's serious, even though I'm his only child. Why couldn't he just be a normal father, like the fathers of every other thirteen-year-old girl on Hapes? Why couldn't he just stay around the castle and do what Mother tells him to do?

Ben's jealous of the amount of attention I get from Father. He could have it all if I had any say in it. Kriff it all! Father ruined every chance I ever had at a normal life.

The droid's coming at me and I'm ready to kick it. This is where Father's teaching comes in. I flip the way he does, grab the droid's arm, and twist it as I cut it up with the lightsaber that I have in my other hand.

Two more droids appear. I didn't ask for them and I turned around to see Father holding a remote. I asked him what the kriff he was doing here. All he ever said was that he was disappointed with me for not being able to sense stuff and for saying 'kriff'. That's not fair. He's the one who taught me the word.

Things went like this for years and I tried to love him as a daughter's supposed to love her father, but he never made it easy and in the end, I always gave back in to hatred, the key feeling that will make me a stronger Sith. Yes, I once wanted to be a Jedi, but the way I'm going, I'm clearly going to be a Sith. Today, I officially become an adult, but what does that matter? Father always told me that I deserved to die long ago, and yet in his absence, I commanded entire fleets like the princess that I am.

I've even killed people, sometimes at my own discretion, sometimes at Father or Mother's command, though Mother disapproves of me. What does it matter that she does? She has no other daughter to pass her crown to and she clearly stated that I'm a better choice than any of those rotten cousins of ours. That brings me to something else, I suppose. She wishes for me to return to Hapes and take some political training, which is like specializing in Hapan politics after immersing myself in the regular stuff. It makes sense, though, as those women are known to be vipers with pretty faces.

It's been a year since I last spoke, and I'm speaking this time because that Skywalker boy pushed it too far. That's right. Ben might be older than I am, but he is just a boy because males don't mature half as fast as us girls. I won't show it, but he's pushed it too far with me and I'm tired of trying to teach him to respect me, the heir of sixty-three worlds and daughter of his Master. I bet I could make a much better apprentice than him and the worlds that Father gave him would make nice additions to my collection since Father only let me have five systems.

I've spent more than half of my time on Hapes in the last year and learned quite a few tricks, though what I learned merely built on what Father taught me. When it was my age, well, a little older, he became the supreme master of poisons.

Father was, in Hapan terms, less than pleased, to learn that I was the one who slipped the bacta extract into Ben's dinner. He took out his red lightsaber on me and we fought to a draw. He said that he was disappointed that I no longer feared his weapon. So what? I was a fool to be scared of a weakling male like him.

I extracted some degree of satisfaction from the fact that he named me Darth Scarlett and promoted me to the rank of Sith Apprentice.

As time passed, I left Hapes less and less. As a Sith Lady, I had minions to carry out my ambitions of conquest for me and as a princess, I had to stay on my homeworld and flirt with these idiot nobles to make my people see me as one of them. Technically, I'm still princess, but people treat me like a queen, especially since I publicly executed those who dared to displease me and tortured those who committed lesser crimes.

I ruled without mercy and with an angry fist of durasteel for years until Tristan stepped out of my garden and into somewhere deeper. He was a noblewoman's son and I thought of him as a mere toy until I sensed something in him. When I reached into the Force, I felt something special in him, even though he's quite stupid and by no means Force-sensitive.

Father never had anything nice to say about Tristan, but Mother approved. I was happy and yet at the same time, disturbed, since I don't think I felt that whatever-it-was. Mother hadn't been happy with me ever since as long as I could remember. I tried to ignore the feeling as I arranged to promote him to the rank of consort so that I could have some allies in the courts.

Words don't describe how I felt about my life since I took Tristan. I no longer use the Force as much and while I appear cold and emotionless to the public and to my minions, I can't help but feel happy. Tristan sincerely loves me, though I doubt he has a clue as to what he's loving and caring about. He's so innocent and stupid and I shield him from these ugly politics because I don't want to see him hurt.

Is this what life's like for normal, Hapan women?

Life in the palace was very uneventful for months compared to my experiences with my father, but I'm having a child who'll mean the galaxy to me. It's a relief to not have to execute people to forgive, which is something that I had either learned or relearned in the past year.

My heir is coming and my consort just had to bring me out of my birthing trance. I instinctively reach for my lightsaber and as it turns out, I was correct. My father is here, ready to kill me. I had forgotten about him and become complacent, living in a dream with my consort.

I can see it in Father's brown eyes that he wants my family and me, the three of us, all dead. Kriff it. I'm totally defenseless as he reaches out to choke me. So I'll finally die, like he said I would. Instead, he puts his hands back and his presence relaxes. He says that I'm too weak at this point and that I was foolish to forget that I was a Sith before I was queen, mother, or wife. I'd gag him if I could.

A day passed and Father left us alone in the medbay, as he was ordered to. I was disappointed that the child was a son, but he would have the normal life that I never did and I loved the little brat nonetheless. Then, I was surprised to learn that I had a daughter as well. She would share her brother's normal childhood, but her path would be harder since she's heir. I reach out to my children and can feel both as well as I could myself at any moment.

I may be a Sith, but there's nothing but light, my beloved consort, and our heirs.

A few months passed and I wonder how Mother survived not having Father at her side. Mother. That's what I am to my children now. Supposedly, I am the source of wisdom, love, and protection, which brings me to business. I've several intelligence reports warning me about my father. Even though he never laid a hand on me despite his threats about the contrary, I can't take the admonitions about my children's lives lightly. He already tried to kill them once.

So, I forced Tristan to take our heirs to his family and grin at the fact that my father never bothered to learn anything about his son-in-law's home.

I'm aboard Father's flagship now, drawing on every bit of strength that I can get from the pain of having to leave my consort, my son and my daughter, even if I did leave them in good hands. I hear the snap-hiss of my crimson blade, a blade stained with the blood of the thousands that I had murdered despite their pleas for mercy, for the first time in at least a year and I cry.

I'm doing the same thing that I used to do for personal glory, only that this time, it's for my family. The battle went by quickly and Father fell like the spineless, poor excuse for a Sith that he was. His Sith Empire is now mine, not that I truly care. I step over the body and try not to think about the life that I just took. Had I been thirteen, I would have been pleased to have eliminated this man, but now…

I try to embrace my consort after returning, but he resists and begs me to stop. We just talked and I dwelled on what he said until it made sense to me. He did not want me to be the cruel, heartless Sith that Father had taught me to be. I never knew how much it hurt me to see fear in my consort's eyes. I can't let him plead like that, with tears in his eyes.

So, here I am, burying a lightsaber and a log of my life up to the point where I swore to live like an ordinary but loving woman, to never kill, main, destroy, or sacrifice a life that I have no right to sacrifice, ever again.