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- Dec 23, 2006
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Iona Peller
Child
Dathomir. The rolling hills, green upon green, reached out like the sea before her. A thousand spots of light lit the black sky above.
Dew wet the child’s bare feet as she listlessly moved through the calm of the very early morning. She wore scraps of hide, stitched together in a sack-like dress. Tears trailed down her pudgy cheeks from brilliant blue eyes. There was blood on her hands.
She would cringe as she walked, very suddenly, as if she had been struck. She still felt the flames from the attack on her white skin. She was a very fragile girl.
“Now, child, why have you run so far from home?”
The girl looked up at the woman, big eyes too tired to show fear. “My home’s gone.”
A smile, and the owner of the voice, a tall beautiful woman, extended a hand. “I know, girl. Take my hand and I will take you away from here.”
The girl lifted a meek hand, letting it fall in to the firm grip of the woman. “Will you take me to my new home?”
A smile: “Yes, dear.”
“My name’s Iona.”
There would be more blood.
Youth
It was a kick that went straight to the guts.
It was a punch that knocked the jaw and the senses.
It was a grapple that tensed joints.
It was a kiss that had copper on the lips.
It was an embrace that bruised ribs.
The girl had grown in to a pretty young woman. She wore her hair long and wild and dressed in the loose brown robes knitted by her adopted mother.
The woman pinning her to the wall of the pit, wet with rain and blood, grinned. She didn’t have pretty eyes. Another kiss and more pain followed those eyes. Iona smiled.
“A pleasure training with you,” the hard woman said, pulling away from Iona.
“Yes,” Iona responded with a smile somewhere between heat and serenity. She turned around to leave the pit.
It was a blow that sent the world spinning in to nothing.
-=+=-
Blood gushed from the wound in the neck and the young man slumped to his knees. Iona looked at the red staining the man’s white tunic with satisfaction. Her mother stood behind her, tall and imposing and beautiful, and she was smiling.
“Good, my child.”
“Why was he sentenced to death?” Iona asked, looking at the corpse. There was no regret in her voice. She was curious.
“He had raised his voice to an Elder.”
“He deserved death, then.” Iona nodded, firm in her belief.
Her mother smiled. “Yes, my daughter, he deserved death.”
Woman
The fires spread from the village center and consumed the screaming women and children. They had been left behind, barricaded within their homes, and the men had been gathered and forced on their knees, slaughtered only after the last scorched corpse had been retrieved and left in a pile.
The Blue River Clan had long been a thorn in the side of the Nightsisters. They would no longer cause trouble.
It was unpleasant. Iona’s way of life had ended in the same fashion. The Nightsisters had given her power, though. They had redeemed themselves for the destruction of her village. She had survived, that was what was important.
The hard-eyed woman walked up to Iona, standing on a bluff overlooking the dying embers of a dead settlement. She looked over to Iona, dressed in the battle garb of a respected warrior and smiled.
“It is intoxicating,” she stated. She was not talking about the thrill of battle.
Iona turned to regard the woman with a smile chipped from stone. “Very.”
There was no kiss. She did not love the hard-eyed woman. It didn’t matter in the end; she found herself in her bed that night and many more.
Adult
The prison cell reeked of shit, urine and stale foodstuffs. Iona was the sole occupant, forced to endure the shame of allowing herself to be captured by the Knights of the Empire.
It was the Emperor who fought her. It was the Emperor who bested her. It was the Emperor who spared her life.
She hated him and would kill him.
“You are to be a prisoner of the Empire, to be rehabilitated, if possible.”
“Rehabilitation suggests there is something wrong,” she seethed. “I am perfect.”
He shook his heavy brow, laughing. She hated his laugh. “You are an angry, petulant woman.”
He visited her twice a day, every day. He would argue with her twice a day, every day.
Eventually she called him Emperor. Eventually she was rehabilitated.
Eventually she learned to love him, secreting away to his chambers in the middle of the night to stay in his bed.
Commander
The Knights bent a knee to her, gathered in the hull of the Sith’s Folly. She was forty years old now. She once again seethed with hatred. It empowered her and inspired her Knights. She would use it to destroy the Sith.
The Sith had taken him from her. The Sith had taken her home from her. The Sith had taken everything from her.
She would take it back.
“Knights, we face a colossal task! The Sith have returned, and we must ensure it is a short return! We will fight to the last man! We will perceiver! Do not fret, for you are family! Hold to each other, and we shall win!”
There was a cheer from them, but it sounded hollow. She thought they didn’t believe her. She didn’t know if she believed herself either.
She returned to her empty bed.
