By request from MissOffee I have decided to write a Luminara Point of View. As an aside if this turns out badly I apologize, but I'm not very good with emotional character interaction stuff. I'm more of a monologue type of person, as you can all tell. I felt that this was the only way to do a Luminara POV though. I'm glad you all like the story so far. If you have liked what I have written so far then you are really going to enjoy what I have planned for the last chapter. I have something…special planned for Palpatine's point of view. Can you guess what it is? Please leave a review!
The shuttle zooms across Galactic City, past skylanes and billboards, high rises and office buildings. At first glance it seems that little has changed on Coruscant. Then again first looks are deceiving. If you look hard enough you can see and feel the difference. Propaganda posters can be found on the walls. Clone Shocktroopers patrol the streets, omnipresent and imposing. Holoscreens show live news reports of carnage from the front lines. Everywhere there is a pervasive sense of fear.
Evil is everywhere.
If there is one concentrated place of evil on Coruscant, I am sure that my destination is it.
The facility where Barriss is held is cold and impersonal, symbolic of the warmongering and hatred that has consumed the galaxy like fire.
The Shuttle lands at the base. It is hard for me to walk. Everywhere I go clones and officers alike stop and look at me. They know who I am. They know why I am here.
I clutch the cloak I hold closer and press on.
Their investigation of me is quite extensive. They scan everything at least three times. They don't trust me, or any Jedi for that matter. And because of my connection to the prisoner they trust me even less.
Prisoner. That's what she is now, a prisoner.
Oh, Barriss, where did I go wrong?
At long last I am allowed through.
I find her in her cell, eyes closed in meditation as if she was still at the Temple.
"You're here." She says.
"I am." I respond.
All prisoners are allowed one call. I had just been recalled from fighting in the Sluis Sector and debriefed on Barriss's incarceration when she had contacted me. She had left her cloak in her room and she wanted me to give it to her.
"It is quite cold in this cell. I didn't have time to put on my cloak when Master Skywalker came by to visit."
Visit, a rather odd word to use to describe a bloodthirsty confrontation.
"Leave the cloak on the cot and go." She orders. She still hasn't opened her eyes to look at me.
"Barriss, I…"
"LEAVE! I have nothing to say to you or any other Jedi."
But I don't leave. I stand there for what feels like an eternity.
"You were like the daughter I never had Barriss. I was so proud of you. You had the potential to be one of the greatest Jedi of your generation. Why did you do this? Why did you betray us?"
Now she looks at me, and for a moment I am convinced that this cannot be the Barriss that I knew. Her eyes are filled with scorn and derision, her face lined with a contemptuous scowl.
"I betrayed no one." She responds. "You all betrayed me and the values you claimed to hold dear."
I can't make sense of that. "I don't understand."
She shakes her head and gets up, eyes piercing, as if looking into my very soul and judging me unworthy.
"The Jedi Order has fallen into darkness Master. We have tossed aside every value we held dear by shackling ourselves to a corrupt government. The Council has become nothing more than a body of warmongers and the Knights of the Order have become willing soldiers in an army of darkness. The Jedi have become no better than the Dark Lord they oppose."
Every word is like a sledgehammer. It hurts to see her become so deranged.
"Why couldn't you have talked to me? We could have worked through this. It needn't have come to this."
She just shakes her head again like a disappointed Master scolding a disobedient Padawan.
"Talk? Oh I talked Master. I sent every possible signal that I was disgusted with this war and the Jedi's participation in it. I gave everyone every possible sign. I did everything, literally everything short of actually spelling out how I felt. And I was routinely ignored or brushed off every time."
I still don't understand. "You could have talked to me."
"I did. You just didn't understand. You just repeated the same tired old dogma again and again: It is the duty of the Jedi to serve as the Republic sees fit. Any feelings on the matter had to be let go for the greater good. But I couldn't let go. I saw this Order participating in wholesale slaughter, and you expect me to let that go? I saw rampant hypocrisy and hopelessness, and you expect me to simply let go? I saw us betray every value, every principle, every… every everything in order to win this war, and you expect me to simply let go?"
Her voice grows louder and louder, her anger building. This isn't the Barriss I knew.
"I expressed my opinions, my fears, and my doubts and no one seemed to understand. It was then that I realized that the Council and I were speaking completely different languages. They now spoke the language of violence. Violence was the only thing they understood. And so I decided to send them a message, written in fire, shrapnel, and the blood of their own. A warning, a strike against everything that is wrong with the Order."
She turns away from me; her voicing becomes little more than a whisper.
"You were never there. We were oftentimes separated for months on end. Either you were at the front and I was at the Temple or the reverse. I knew that there was no hope when I realized that you of all people, the Jedi I idolized above all had engaged in the same hypocrisy and blood sport as the rest of the Order. I knew then that there was no hope left for the Jedi. I knew then what I had to do."
I don't know what to think. I don't know what to say or do. But I have to try now.
"Barriss, I…"
She turns back to me, her voice harsh and bitter.
"Leave Master Luminara, just, just go and leave me alone."
So I go.
How could I have failed so completely? I should have spent more time with her. I should have been more attentive.
I should have been there for her when she needed me. But I wasn't. I spent far too much time at the front combatting the Separatists and far too little time with my apprentice.
This war. This awful, awful war. It has taken the best from us and exposed our worst for all the galaxy to see. How can we possibly win this war if victory requires us to abandon all that we cherish? In the face of such tragedy even the greatest of us can fall.
Barriss was like an angel. She embodied all the goodness that the Jedi Order represented. But this terrible conflict blackened her soul and caused her to commit unspeakable acts of evil. I didn't see the signs. I should have been there to see the signs.
But I wasn't there. The dead cannot rise. What is done cannot be undone, and a Jedi cannot be allowed to ruminate on the past and what could have been. And so I let go of my self-loathing, my anxiety, my sorrow. But I do not forget. I forgive, but I do not forget.
I do not blame Barriss for this crime. I blame myself for not being there for her.
The Court has made its decision. She is to be executed. I allow myself to mourn for her for now. But soon my duty will require me to put that aside as well. If there is one silver lining in this stormy sky we call life it is this. This terrible conflict will come to an end. I know not when, but it will end. It must.
It is only a matter of time.