Requiem For The Stars

Moonlight tumbled through the window into the room. Gillian Skywalker Sentri stood amid that silvery glow, clad in a grey uniform tunic and breeches, the sleeves of the tunic bearing the signs of her rank, emblazed with the sigil of the Clan she served. Her eyes were green, and had once been hard as diamonds. But the years had changed Gillian, and there was kindness and compassion in those eyes now- and a depth of pain few understood. Hair the color of dark fire was pulled back into a tight knot at the nape of her neck, held in place with a pair of silver pins, and if there were a few streaks of grey at her temples now, for all that she had lived through, the years had indeed been kind.

Behind her, tossed aside upon a chair, was a simple robe of black and green. The robe of a Corellian Jedi. Born on Coruscant, not Corellia, she had nonetheless been drawn to the tradition, and had found that it suited her. Luke's Temple teachings were all well and good, but, she had discovered years ago, simply not for her. From the temples of Yavin he had hoped to build something new, but she- she had to rebuild. Her life, herself...

As was the way with most Corellian Jedi, she wandered into the isolated and the lonely places, places others might not go, never expecting to find a place that would take in such a galactic drifter.

She had found her adopted home world- the world she had come to, oh so long ago, young, full of life, and so very angry at the galaxy for the pain it had caused her. Perhaps even justifiably angry; she had been born to the last generation of high Imperial power upon Coruscant, embroiled in the power struggles and intrigues of Palpatine's court from a young age. Even into adulthood she served the Empire, knowing no other way.

Until the Emperor had fallen at Endor. Until the illusions of her youth had been shattered; until she had tried, and failed, to resurrect the Empire from its ashes.

Until Luke. Luke, who had known she hated him, and had come anyway. Luke, who had helped her despite that, brought her back from the darkness and the Dark Side. Who had helped her to disappear, into the wilds of Naboo's lake country that had once been his mother's home.

She had faded, for a time, into that place. Gillian had told those she met on Naboo only that she was Lady Amidala's niece, that she had lost much in the war, and that she had come home hoping to heal.

But Naboo had never been home, not the way she had wanted it to be. And when she had heard that the Empire was rising again, Gillian had known what she must do.

Gillian went to the current holder of the Emperor's throne; Palpatine's cousin, a young, unstable man called Valand. To Valand she had offered her skills to help in his reign. From there it was simply a matter of biding her time, waiting until the time was right. Waiting until she could bring Valand Palpatine down- and with him, she hoped, the last of the Empire.

Gillian realized the time had come when she met Duelist Sentri.

An alliance forged on behalf of the Empire became something deeper and more personal. At the same time she had discovered that the man she knew as the Caveroni ambassador was nothing of the sort, but instead their highest military officer.

All the years of their lives they had been fighting, the two of them, having both, in their own ways, inherited the struggles of their parents, the battles which their elders had not yet won. And so they had fought on, all of them so very young, until the years of war and death settled on them and made them old before their time. Until at the last they had been left with little save memories and demons, and had been able to lay their swords down.

Foolishly, perhaps, they had thought it was over. That all the battles of their lives were done, and they had seen the last of death, save that which comes in old age or illness, and those, at least, had about them a sense of normalcy. Gillian and the others had thought that at last they might know peace. But it had been fleeting, like a cruel jest Fate had laid at their feet.

Verisimilitude, Gillian thought with a well-accustomed pain. Because there had been one last war, when they had thought themselves long since done with them, and that war, though brief, had cost them so very much...

It had been a war of Force users, short and terrible as such wars often were. Begun with a betrayal by an old friend long denied power he felt his due, it had ended on a clear spring day whose air had been scrubbed clean by rain, a day when the sky was such a brilliant shade of blue that it hurt the eyes and tugged at the heart. It had ended, at dusk on that beautiful day, with the death of Gillian's husband. The traitor had gone at a Caveroni Jedi named Elric, and there had not been time to stay the death blow, only time enough for Duelist to move before Elric and take it in his place.

Later, as Gillian thought of those chaotic moments, while the air still rang with the sounds of Duelist's challenge to the rogue, she found that she recalled very little. What memory she had came in bits and pieces, sounds that echoed and ached in her mind, sights that tore at her eyes... She thought of it very rarely, and yet the memories refused to fade.

She recalled fighting beside the others; Master Ertai who seemed far too old for the fight, but who held walking staff and 'saber with steady hands; Elen who he had taught and raised; Isabelle, Elen's own apprentice, and Gillian's own students... But somehow, somewhere, she had lost them, and found herself fighting alone, with no sign of anyone she knew, save for a fleeting glimpse of Jenna's auburn braid, and the sound of the Sentri war cry coming from somewhere far to the side. After that she knew little, only that she moved and spun and power flowed from her hands...

She had never seen the traitor turn from their own lines, had not seen him who was kin to the man they fought that day raise his hand to Elric, nor had she seen what happened after.

It had been Dalamar who'd found her, Dalamar who had brought her to Duelist's side as he lay dying. It had also been Dalamar, she learned later, who had left them then, who had followed the rogue as he fled, who had found him- and who had done nothing save assure he could run no farther.

Gillian had gone to her husband on the battlefield, had knelt at Duelist's side. She had held him as he died, spoken to him and kissed him and ran her hands over his wounds, trying and failing to heal through her rage and her tears and her grief. Gods, how she had tried!

But the power was beyond her; she knew it. Gillian screamed for Elen. Old friend, the greatest of their healers- and when Elen had come, Gillian had seen her stricken expression, the tears streaming down the other woman's face, and she had known- had known that Elen could not save him.

"I'm sorry, Gilly," Elen whispered. "I can ease the pain, a little, and that's all."

Gillian bit her lip, tasted blood; didn't care. "No. I can do that. The others need you..."

Elen nodded. Someone else called her name, and she turned, ran. Weeping.

They had time to say goodbye, and no more.

"I love you," Gillian whispered, and called their eldest child.

Caitlyn reached them at a dead run, her clothes torn and streaked with blood. At her heels ran her inner circle; Anna, Tempest, Draco, Jaret Ballard. Ballard's saber and the blasters of the other three surrounded Gillian's daughter, and their mission was clear; protect Caitlyn.

If only they could have protected her from this...

"Mama?" whispered Caitlyn.

"Caitlyn," Gillian said. "Come here, darling."

The circle parted and Caitlyn stepped through the gap. Gillian saw Ballard's hand grasp her shoulder for a moment as she passed.

Caitlyn started to say something else, but then her father began to speak to her. Telling her what she must do, the responsibilities that were hers now. Gillian forced herself to watch as Duelist passed his saber to Caitlyn, curled her fingers around the hilt.

Through her tears, Gillian watched him die.

Mother and daughter fell into each other's arms, weeping- and that was the last she knew for a very long time.

With his death her world had gone still. And she had roused herself from that stillness only at Dalamar's call, and had found herself armed- her lightsaber, blazing in the dark. Dalamar's voice then, her husband's teacher, and he his trusted, most beloved, student, his apprentice... Dalamar, ages older and yet whom she loved as her own son, telling her the rogue was hers.

The slim portion of her that was still working rationally had intended to kill the wretch quickly. Because she was Clanswoman, Sentri, Jedi, and above such things as revenge, torture... But then Gillian had seen him, this smug, gloating bastard who was so damned proud of what he'd done, and knew that it was because she was what she was, that she would take her time.

Knew it until her hand shifted on the lightsaber- and she began to remember. Remember that though her clothes were torn and stained, she wore the robes of a Jedi. And a Jedi did not- could not- do this.

Least of all her, having taken the path before, and knowing how easy it was to fall...

"No," she said. "This isn't who I am anymore- not who any of us are. It's what they would have done."

Gillian had testified at the trial; she distinctly remembered that. Speaking in a voice devoid of all emotion, she had told them all she knew, which was not all that much. It had been Dalamar who told them how it had happened. She remembered that too.

When the man was found guilty and sentenced to death, Gillian felt absolutely nothing.

It was done, had been done long ago. It was not enough, and it changed nothing. No death could undo the one that had begun it all.

Nor could any life. It had been only a few months after the last battle that Gillian had found herself pregnant with twins. The elder, a girl, she had called Dierna, and the younger, a boy, she named Duelist after his father. Named Duelist, but he came to be called by his middle name, Mikahil, because his mother could not bear to speak the name of her dead husband. Not for years would she be able to speak that name again.