Embers: Sequel to Crash and Burn

“I don’t want to go to Coruscant.”

“We’ve talked about this already, Allana,” said Prince Isolder. He sighed and shook his head; he was tired from piloting, and this was the sixth time she had started her miniature tirade.

“I want to go home. I don’t know anybody on Coruscant. Mother is a Jedi and if anybody tries to hurt me she can hit them with her lightsaber.”

“Allana, you’re going to learn how to use a lightsaber yourself.”

“I can’t. I’m only six.”

“Did you know that your father could swing a lightsaber when he was two?”

“I don’t care. He’s not any good. He left us when I was a baby and I don’t want to see him.” She folded her arms and flopped down on the seat next to Isolder.

“He didn’t leave because he wanted to leave, or because he didn’t love you. He left because they needed him somewhere far away. There aren’t many Jedi in the galaxy and they go around doing very great things. They save lives and help stop wars. Your father Jacen had to go and help with that, and he couldn’t stay on Hapes because then people might die.”

“I think you’re telling me a story,” said Allana. “I think you just don’t want me to know that Mother got tired of watching me so she’s sending me to Father and he doesn’t want to watch me either.”

Isolder ground his teeth. “That’s not true. Your mother wants you to stay with her, but it’s not safe for you anymore. Ta’a Chume wants to be the Queen Mother, and that’s why she made your grandmother die. And she wants to hurt your mother and take you away from her, so we told her you died and now you can pretend to be somebody else.”

“Then how is Father going to know it’s me?”

“Well, we can tell him about it. He’s not going to tell anybody who shouldn’t know.”

Isolder steeled himself for another argument, hopefully the last one, and steered the ship towards the Coruscant spacelanes.

---

Jacen reclined lazily on the old, battered couch, with his head on Anakin’s lap, and he pressed a few buttons on the remote controller to change the channel on their holoviewer. “Anything good on?”

“I don’t know,” Anakin said. “Maybe you.”

“I’m not on the holos,” Jacen said.

“That’s not what I meant.” Anakin playfully ruffled Jacen’s hair and leaned down to give him a kiss on the cheek. But before he could do it, he heard a familiar name coming from the holoviewer, and it registered in his mind that someone he knew was being mentioned on the newscast. “Kriff, Jace. Take a look at that.”

Jacen sat up and looked at the blue image floating just above the viewer. An impossibly beautiful woman stood there, serene and sad, and he thought that he might have seen her before. She was one of the Hapan newscasters, although he couldn’t quite remember her name.

“Three evenings ago, the Ereneda, Queen Mother Teneniel Djo, passed away after ingesting a toxin. It is believed that the poison was deliberately placed in her food, but no one has been indicted yet in the attack. Her daughter, Tenel Ka Chume Ta’Djo, and her husband, Prince Isolder, survived. However, it has been confirmed that the Queen Mother’s granddaughter, Allana Chume Ta'Djo, is also deceased.”

Anakin reached for the remote, but Jacen pushed his hand away with one of his own and squeezed the device with the other. “Jasa, I-“

“Shut up.”

The newscast turned to news of the flooding of a Mon Calamari city, so Jacen finally turned off the holoviewer, and sat stunned for a few moments. Allana, was all he could think. What if it was his fault? It had to be his fault, since if he was on Hapes, it was possible that the poison never would have gotten far enough to hurt her. But no, he had to leave, and therefore her death was as much his fault as it was whoever poisoned her. And he had little doubt that it was Ta’a Chume – someone who he very easily could have killed long before things got to the current point.

Jacen jumped up and went into the kitchen. Anakin didn’t try to follow him, except with his eyes, and Jacen ignored him. Instead, he just pulled out a tumbler glass and filled it to the top with whiskey, and downed the whole thing. It burned his mouth and throat.

He liked the pain. It made him less able to think about other things. He could roll with pain, if he wanted to, or he could surrender to it and let it take him over. It was his choice. He’d been through the very worst pain a human could go through without dying – and even more than that, possibly, and he was only kept alive because the Sith wanted him alive, wanted to force him to choose between crawling through it and letting Anakin die. He chose to crawl through it, which they hadn’t expected. But now he didn’t want to do that; he wanted to just sink into agony so that he didn’t have to think.

Jacen drank another half-glass without even waiting for the first one to settle, and as soon as the kitchen started to rock around him, he stumbled around the counter and towards the bedroom. The floor came up to hit him in the jaw, but something caught him and held him back before he made any contact. “Lemme alone, Ann-kin,” he slurred, and struggled briefly against the other man’s hold.

“Come on, Jacen. You need to lie down. Your bed is right through the door.”

Jacen swiped at Anakin but missed entirely, and finally let him help him through the door and onto the bed. Jacen lay down and shut his eyes, so that he didn’t see the room tilting; he just felt the bed sway underneath him, and he dug his fingers into the mattress.

He didn’t really know how long he was there. He lay still for as long as he could, and then his stomach twisted and he started to gasp. Someone picked him up and helped him into the ‘fresher, and Jacen just made it to the toilet when he started throwing up. Anakin held his head up so that he didn’t fall in. “Dammitakin,” Jacen tried to say. “Gimme ‘nother one.”

“No, Jasa, you’ve had enough to drink tonight. If you weren't a Jedi I'd have to be taking you to the medic center right about now.”

“Lanna. Lanna. Tachoo killana.”

“You don’t know that it was Ta’a Chume. It might have even been an accident.” Anakin held Jacen steady as he heaved again, and then rubbed his back.

Then there was a knock at the door.

“Gogethadoor.”

“I’m not going to leave you here by yourself.”

“I’m fine. Fine.” Jacen grabbed the sides of the greasy bowl and strained to keep himself up.

“I’ll be right back, then,” Anakin said, and made sure that Jacen’s chin was on the bowl rim and not past it before he left.

Anakin looked through the peephole. He saw a tall man with long hair falling in waves of silver and gold. He was dressed in a simple brown traveling suit, but his posture was one of a man who had noble upbringing. Anakin opened the door to admit him.

“Hello, Your Highness,” he said. “Um, Jacen’s here, but he’s sick. I think he has a stomach bug.” He looked around the apartment and nervously ran his hand through his hair; luckily the living room wasn’t too unkempt, but it was hardly fit to receive a royal guest, even Jacen’s ex-father-in-law.

“Yuck,” a second voice said.

There was a little girl standing behind Isolder. She had on an impractical white silk gown that trailed on the floor and had already picked up some dirt and dust from the walk to the door. Her two dozen small braids were mussed, and her face was twisted into a pout.

“Allana? She’s alive? Your Highness, what is going on? We just saw a news story that said that Allana and the Ereneda were dead!”

“I’m not dead.”

Isolder glanced down at his granddaughter, then at Anakin, who was quite a bit shorter than him, although he was a lot taller than Allana. “Ta’a Chume has been scheming to kill my late wife and my daughter for many years,” he said. “With Teneniel gone, the only thing that stands between her taking Allana and raising her as her own, to be a schemer and a murderer like herself, is Tenel Ka. For Tenel Ka’s protection and for Allana’s, we have made the story that she died.”

“Oh, kriff,” Anakin said, before he remembered who he was with. He clapped his hand over his mouth. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean-“

“No offense is taken, Anakin. But I must speak to Jacen, whether he is sick or not. If he’s well enough not to be with the medic droids, then he’s well enough to listen to me.”

Jacen staggered into the living room then, gripping the corner of the wall. “Lanna,” he said. “Itslanna. Sheslive.”

Isolder took a deep breath and his nostrils flared. “A curious kind of sickness,” he said. Anakin only slumped his shoulders and looked away. “Jacen, I take it that you saw the newscast earlier today. I tried to get here before the story broke, but we were held up for awhile in the spacelanes.”

“It smells bad in here,” Allana said, and pinched her nose. Isolder put his hand on her shoulder and squeezed it hard. “Ow! Do’t do that, Gradfather.”

Jacen lurched towards them and threw his arms around Allana, but he tripped and fell, and wound up sitting on the floor. She almost fell with him, but kept her balance and pulled away, frowning.

“Tenel Ka sent me here with Allana, because she must be hidden,” Isolder went on, graciously ignoring the spectacle that the drunk Jedi Knight was making. “Nobody knows that she is still alive, except for those of us in this room, a few of our servants, and Tenel Ka herself. Nobody else must find out. She wants you to take Allana and raise her here until it’s safe to bring her back to Hapes. I don’t know how long that is going to be, and it will depend on how quickly I can find another wife who will not provoke Ta’a Chume’s anger, and who will not hurt the Consortium with scheming. You should know from your brief time in the palace that that is easier said than done.”

“Wai, wha?” Jacen looked up at everyone with a confused look on his face.

“Tenel Ka is giving you custody of Allana for awhile,” said Anakin.

“Canjuss do that. Therespapers an’ stuff.” Jacen waved his hands unsteadily.

“I don’t think you are in any position to argue with the Queen Mother,” said Isolder. “Tenel Ka is the Queen Mother now and she does not have enough time to keep a constant watch over Allana and keep her safe. I have my doubts about this, but it is not my place to argue with her, either. She is a woman and she is the Queen Mother.”

Jacen tried to hug Allana again, but she stepped away and sat herself down demurely on the couch. “She dunwanna stay here,” Jacen said, and he looked upset.

“I can talk to her, if you want,” Anakin offered.

“You do that.” Isolder nodded in approval, and waved his hand at two shadowed figures that were waiting in the hallway. The robed guards came in with two large trunks, each of them large enough for a grown man to curl up and hide in, and they laid the trunks out in the living room. A whirring droid with synthflesh over its four arms came in behind them. “These are some of Allana’s clothes and other things that she wanted to bring with her, and she has a nanny droid to watch her during the day if you must leave without her. Her stay will probably be long enough that she will need some of her clothes. I have not had much of an opportunity to talk to her about the Jedi Academy and I must admit that even though my daughter was in it for a long time I do not know enough about it to advise Allana. That will be Jacen’s job when he… feels better.” Isolder waved again at the servants. “I think my time here is finished. I am going to say goodbye to my granddaughter and then be on my way.”

“But… wait a minute,” Anakin protested. “Your Highness, there isn’t even a room here for her.”

“I’m sure you’ll think of something, right, Jacen?”

Jacen nodded dumbly and looked blankly at Anakin. Anakin resisted the urge to hold him – they couldn’t do that in front of Isolder, whose misgivings about leaving Allana in the apartment were already obvious.

Isolder sat next to Allana. “I have to go home now,” he said.

“Take me with you. I don’t like it here. I miss Mother.”

“Your father is here, and he is going to take care of you. You’re safer here than you would be in the palace.”

“I don’t see any guards. And my droid just has little blasters.”

“Your father and your uncle Anakin are better than guards. They’re Jedi Knights; they’re as strong as your mother is.”

“Nobody is as strong as my mother. Not even you.” Allana folded her arms and scowled at Isolder.

“They have something special, something called the Force. I don’t, but you do, and you will be able to learn to use it so that some day you won’t need guards.”

“You’re silly,” said Allana. “A princess always needs guards.”

Anakin shook his head and wondered exactly what they – well, what Jacen was getting into.

“I want to see my room,” Allana finally said.

“We don’t have any furniture for it yet,” Anakin said. “But we can get some, maybe tomorrow. It’s late and Jacen is too sick to drive but tomorrow we’ll go and get you whatever you need.”

Isolder excused himself, but turned to Jacen for a few parting words before he left. “I expect that you will do your utmost to keep Allana safe. If anything happens to her, I am holding you personally responsible, and you will not only have to answer to Tenel Ka, but to the entire Hapan army. Allana is the Chume Ta’ now, and Tenel Ka has made a great sacrifice in order to ensure that she is safe. If you are the one who makes a mistake that gets her hurt or worse, do not expect to live much longer yourself.”

Prince Isolder swept away and the door slammed shut behind him. As soon as he was gone, Allana burst into tears.

“Quiet, now,” Anakin said. “Look, it’s going to be all right. Your father is here, and you’ve met me before. I’m your uncle Anakin. We’re going to keep you very safe, and you’ll have a room to yourself, and you can meet some other kids and play with them. Not tonight, but I can take you down to the Academy tomorrow after work and you can meet them.”

Allana only wailed louder and ran for the door. Anakin locked the door from where he stood, using the Force to slide the lock into place. She twisted the doorknob, and when she found that the door wouldn’t open, she started to scream and bang on the door with her fists.

I have a bad feeling about this, he thought despairingly. The droid came up behind her and started to pick her up, but she ducked underneath its arms and ran into the kitchen.

“Allana, stop whining,” Jacen said sternly. There were a few beads of sweat on his forehead and Anakin could smell the alcohol from where he was. Jacen had forced some of the alcohol in his bloodstream out through sweat, and had partially sobered up.

“I want to go home!” Allana shouted.

“You are home. This is home.”

“No, it’s not!” Allana broke away from them and ran down the short hallway. She pushed open the doors – the empty room, the bedroom, and the ‘fresher. Jacen found her looking bewildered at the end of the hall and wiping her face. “How do you get to the rest of the house?”

“The rest of the house?” He looked at Anakin, hoping for some kind of explanation, but Anakin was as confused as he was.

“It looked a lot bigger on the outside.”

“Those are other people’s apartments.”

Allana looked horrified. “You have to share your house with all those servants? Don’t they have their own wing?”

“This isn’t a house. It’s an apartment complex. There are hundreds of apartments and different families live in different apartments. I have this one, and right now Anakin is staying here with me. You’ll be staying here too, I guess. Someone else lives in the next one.”

“They need to clean your floors.”

“They don’t work for me. This is like a hundred tiny houses all squished together with the same stairs and same hallway down the middle.” Jacen wiped off his face with a dishcloth. “Things aren’t going to be the same as what you’re used to. I don’t have servants. I clean the floor myself.”

“No, you don’t. It’s dirty.” She pointed to a spot on the cream-colored carpet that was light tan. “That’s a stain and you didn’t get it out.”

“I’m not very good at it, no. You’re right. But I have to clean up myself because nobody else is here to do it. Well, Anakin can help. And you can.”

“I’m a princess,” Allana said firmly.

“What the hell does that have to do with anything? My mother was a princess and she could wash her own dishes.”

“You don’t have to wash any dishes today, Allana,” Anakin said quickly. He saw Allana’s lower lip start to tremble and he didn’t want to have to hear another meltdown. “You’ll have some time to get used to living here first.”

“She’s my daughter, Anakin,” Jacen snapped.

“You weren’t even sober when she came here. If I wasn’t here then Isolder might have just picked up and taken her somewhere else.”

“I’m hungry,” Allana announced, and she pushed past both of them. There was no dining room, but there was a part of the living room that curved into the kitchen, and Jacen had a dilapidated dinette table there. Allana wrinkled her nose and gingerly brushed hardened crumbs off the chair, then sat down on it.

“I do not know where the snacks are,” Deedee said. “Jacen Solo, where do you keep the food for children?”

“I don’t have any. All I have is bread and some turkey and cheese in the icebox.”

“I don’t like turkey,” Allana declared.

“Then you’re just going to have to go hungry until tomorrow,” Jacen warned.

“Or you could just have a cheese sandwich,” Anakin hastily added.

Deedee made a cheese sandwich for Allana, who ate it in small, delicate bites. Anakin sat down and had his own dinner, but Jacen, still feeling woozy, only sat on the couch.

“I’m done,” Allana said. “Now unpack my clothes and hang them up in the closet.”

“How many hangers do you need?” Jacen asked wearily.

“Sixty.”

“Oh, come on. You don’t have sixty outfits.”

“No, only fifty, but some of them are in two pieces and each piece needs its own hanger. Then put my shoes in the closet in pairs on the floor. I like them matched up.”

“I’m not going to put your clothes away, Allana. You can do it yourself or you can have a droid do it. And you can take the chair into your room if you need something to stand on to reach the hanger bars.”

“You said you were the servant and you cleaned up. So that means you have to put my clothes away too because I’m a princess and I'm too little.”

Jacen knelt down and looked right into Allana’s eyes. Despite nearly identical coloration, she didn’t look much like Tenel Ka; she reminded him far more of himself, and that somehow made it easier for him to say what he needed to say. “I am only going to say this once, so you need to listen. You can’t go around talking about being a princess, because then people will know who you are and you could die. You have to pretend that you’re just like us. That you wear what everybody else wears, that you eat what everybody else eats, and dammit, Allana, you put your own shoes away.”

“If I was very small, like a baby, you would do it for me,” said Allana.

“But you’re not a baby. And if you wanted to be treated like a baby, then that means you have to sleep in a crib, and wear a diaper, and all you get to drink is milk in a bottle.”

“You’re mean,” Allana said, and she started to cry again, but this time she didn’t wail.

“Allana, Jacen was just joking about that,” Anakin said.

“I was not. And when I’m talking to my daughter I really don’t need you butting in.”

Jacen pushed Allana’s trunks into the empty bedroom, next to his weight machine, and set up a makeshift cot for her to sleep on. She fussed and whined, but eventually got tired enough to sit on the floor next to the cot, and Jacen left her there to fall asleep.

“So now what are we supposed to do?” Anakin asked.

“What are you talking about?”

“You and me. I just moved in, and we’ve been together for what, two whole weeks? Now we have her moving in?”

“It’s not like I could do anything about it, Anakin. Allana is my daughter. Just because I’m not with her mother anymore doesn’t mean I don’t care about them – both of them. Tenel Ka is still my friend and I’m going to do what I need to do for Allana.”

“So we’re just going to go back to one of us on the couch and one in the bed?”

“Married couples manage just fine.”

“But we have to hide from her. Not that easy when we’re in the next room.”

“What? I’m not holding you here, Anakin. If you want to go and move in with Mom and Dad, you know exactly where they live, and I’m not making you stay.”

Anakin grabbed Jacen’s arms. “No, Jasa, no. I just don’t want to be competing for your time. It wouldn’t be fair because you’re right. She is your daughter. She’s your flesh and blood.”

“Damn it, Anakin,” Jacen muttered, but it wasn’t really directed at Anakin so much as about him. But Anakin’s point was well made, even if it really was just an accidental slip. “I’ll take the couch tonight. We’ll think of something else tomorrow.”

As he lay on the uncomfortable cushions and tried to avoid the springs, he wondered if he was dreaming, and he hoped that he’d wake up soon. In two weeks, his entire life had been turned on its end.