Titles have responsibilities.
Nov. 12th, 2018 04:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tenelkaThe life of a Jedi was never easy.
Neither was the life of a queen.
Four days ago, Tenel Ka had been sitting at the helm of her fleet, surrounded by her Royal Guard.
Today she was alone, high atop a rocky crag on the unofficial 64th star system of the Hapes Consortium. Hapes was her father’s world. Dathomir, where she was now, was her mother’s.
Below her, the sun turned green as it set, bands of blue and purple coloring the horizon. A dusk like no other she had ever seen, the dusk she saw in her dreams. Dathomir was the home of her heart, and everyone who knew her closely knew it.
But her thoughts were not on the sunset, or the mynocks she could see swirling in the distance. Eyes half-closed, she went beyond that, not just seeing the scenery below but feeling it.
Tenel Ka reached out further with the Force, trying to find herself as she connected to the planet around her. She reached outside and in, both completely aware of everything around her and completely oblivious to it, and —
The memory faded away, and Tenel Ka was alone again with her thoughts.
Titles have responsibilities.
After her mother’s death, Tenel Ka took the title she never wanted, much to everyone’s surprise — including her delighted grandmother.
Since she was a child, she always preferred the ways and traditions of her mother’s world over her father’s. Yet in taking the throne, she finally acknowledged what she had been so stubbornly trying to deny for so long — she was as much a daughter of Hapes as she was Dathomir.
Duality has defined Tenel Ka Djo since the day she was born.
Spears and caves, clans and snakeskin armor was a stark contrast to the spaceships and rainbow gems, and political assassinations and soft silks of Hapes. It had taken her years to realize she did t have to choose between them. And that she couldn’t.
She had hoped it would be the same with her other duality — Jedi and Queen. But the pillars of the Jedi, selflessness, service, the value of life... they were incompatible with her obligations as Queen Mother. To rule the Hapan Consortium, to ensure her people’s prosperity, she had to be a strong ruler, a selfish one. She had to be cold and ruthless, because if she was, her people did not need to be.
Opening her eyes, she looked out at the maroon sky, the sun long set now. She knew what path she had to take. But Tenel Ka was stubborn, and she would wait a bit longer.
Neither was the life of a queen.
Four days ago, Tenel Ka had been sitting at the helm of her fleet, surrounded by her Royal Guard.
Today she was alone, high atop a rocky crag on the unofficial 64th star system of the Hapes Consortium. Hapes was her father’s world. Dathomir, where she was now, was her mother’s.
Below her, the sun turned green as it set, bands of blue and purple coloring the horizon. A dusk like no other she had ever seen, the dusk she saw in her dreams. Dathomir was the home of her heart, and everyone who knew her closely knew it.
But her thoughts were not on the sunset, or the mynocks she could see swirling in the distance. Eyes half-closed, she went beyond that, not just seeing the scenery below but feeling it.
Tenel Ka reached out further with the Force, trying to find herself as she connected to the planet around her. She reached outside and in, both completely aware of everything around her and completely oblivious to it, and —
“You can’t just stop being a Jedi, Tenel Ka,” Jaina told her. “I mean, how? That’s not logical.”
Ah. Ha ha ha. That is a funny joke, Jaina.
Tenel Ka was the most logical person this side of Coruscant. As she had learned quickly as a child from Jaina’s twin brother, if it wasn’t logical, it was usually a joke.
Except the look on her friend’s face quickly told her Solo wasn’t joking.
“How then? You can’t just stop using the Force!”
Truthfully, if anyone could, it would probably be Tenel Ka. To her, if there was a way to do something without the Force, she would learn how to do it that way first. In her eyes, she had to be worthy of it.
But Jaina knew her too well for that.
The Dathomiri, she told Solo instead, are not just Force-sensitive. They use the Force every day of their lives. But we do not call them Jedi.
“Well, sure,” Jaina concedes. “They haven’t been trained. YOU have.”
Jedi Knight is a title, Tenel Ka countered.
“But why can’t you keep it?”
Titles have responsibilities.
The memory faded away, and Tenel Ka was alone again with her thoughts.
Titles have responsibilities.
After her mother’s death, Tenel Ka took the title she never wanted, much to everyone’s surprise — including her delighted grandmother.
Since she was a child, she always preferred the ways and traditions of her mother’s world over her father’s. Yet in taking the throne, she finally acknowledged what she had been so stubbornly trying to deny for so long — she was as much a daughter of Hapes as she was Dathomir.
Duality has defined Tenel Ka Djo since the day she was born.
Spears and caves, clans and snakeskin armor was a stark contrast to the spaceships and rainbow gems, and political assassinations and soft silks of Hapes. It had taken her years to realize she did t have to choose between them. And that she couldn’t.
She had hoped it would be the same with her other duality — Jedi and Queen. But the pillars of the Jedi, selflessness, service, the value of life... they were incompatible with her obligations as Queen Mother. To rule the Hapan Consortium, to ensure her people’s prosperity, she had to be a strong ruler, a selfish one. She had to be cold and ruthless, because if she was, her people did not need to be.
Opening her eyes, she looked out at the maroon sky, the sun long set now. She knew what path she had to take. But Tenel Ka was stubborn, and she would wait a bit longer.
