Saga - OT It's too late now Siriwan repost Thank you Wayback machine.

Well, repost fever is all the rage. I was able to find this nugget with the help of the wayback machine. OMG I don't even remember writing this thing. Enjoy everyone. Story from March 2006

Title: It's too late now.
Genre: AU
Time Period: ESB with flashback to ROTS
Ships: Siri Tachi and Obi Wan, with a side dish featuring Ferus Olin.
Characters: Siri Tachi, Obi Wan, Palpatine, Shira Brie, Roganda Ismaren, Mu Tryles (the OC Royal Guardsman), a few surprises etc.
Summary: Siri Tachi is left at the Imperial Palace after Emperor Obi Wan left to confront the rebels at Sullust.
Notes: This is a companion piece to my fic, Joiner, which features a few characters from this universe which I call Joinerverse, who get transported to the canon universe. But never mind those lost characters for this vig, just concentrate on the happenings of this AU universe. Muahahahahaha Hope you enjoy.

It's too late now.

The rebels should have heard the news regarding the Executor by now. Wonder what their reaction would be.

Maybe they are celebrating. After all, Vader, the Emperor's apprentice, a dark lord of the Sith, is gone from the scene forever. Along with the best and the brightest of the Empire. Thrawn, Gara, and even Vader all lost on that one command ship.

Siri Tachi sighed and took another sip from her cup. Obi Wan has left only hours ago, taking the Lusankya and the rest of the Imperial fleet with him. She had drawn the battle plan for him, and should be by his side on that bridge. But Somehow Obi Wan convinced her to stay, or rather, made her stay. Just like those other times over the past twenty-three years.

The worst part of it is also always the same. They would be discussing their itinerary together and the next thing she knew she would be waking up in the bed, alone. If she were lucky, he would be back within the day, and if not... She would wait.

Only in his presence could she draw on the force anymore. There was never a looking panel or a mirror she could gain access to in the palace. He keeps on telling her that she's keeping her beauty from him, but all the while, she'd known the truth.

Because in his presence, the only time she could sense the force through herself, she could not see herself either.

It wasn't always like this.

It started after the battle.

She, and Ferus Olin, her padawan, had confronted Darth Sidious or as the vast majority of the Republic's citizens know him, Chancellor Palpatine.

Ferus was knocked out early by a viscious attack of force lightning from the Sith master. She had been far less fortunate.

///

Siri Tachi was fighting for her life in the chancellor's private chamber. Her hot-tempered padawan has fallen mere seconds before. She concentrated on her technique and tuned out Ferus's suffering. Taking a deep breath, she switched her purple saber from her fatiguing right hand to her left, and quickly executed a twirl with the clumsier arm. Sparks cracked near her throat and the back of her head stun, while the heat generated from the saber lock threatened to close her right eye. Her left was already spasming out of control.

Siri felt panic in the depth of her stomach.

"Good. Good. Give in to your fear. Let the desperation flow through you¡­"

Sidious had the upper hand now. Being taller to begin with, he quickly applied more power to bear on the still maintained saber lock. Meanwhile, he freed his left hand from his own saber hilt and grabbed the back of Siri's neck.

Siri gasped as Palpatine applied a tiny thread of electricity into her brain stem. Siri's knees buckled and she sank further. Another encouragement from Palpatine and the thirty something Jedi master finally relinquished her tenuous hold on her own hilt. The weapon was still activated as it rolled away.

Palpatine leaned in closer to Siri's glazed eyes and put his lips to her ears: "Join me Master Tachi. We will have power. Power to restore the republic to its former glory. Even enough power to allow you to posess Master Kenobi... I am willing to share it with my apprentice this power. This unique and unlimited power!"

Palpatine dropped her to the ground without further use of the lightning from his fingertips. He calmly stepped over to his desk and sat down.

When Siri was able to rise with from the ferrocrete ground, she bowed and kowtowed to Palpatine. "I apprentice myself to you, my master."

"Good, good. Rise my new apprentice, from now you shal augh aeh..." Sidious was not able to finish his sentence. A blue blade emerged from his chest from behind.

The Sith Lord's corpse exploded in front of Siri as she herself lost consciousness.

///

She was told that she had laid in an infirmary for two months in a coma. When she came to, Obi Wan was sitting by her. A dark aura stronger than her own that felt like an unwanted cup of bitter tea surrounded them both while he swam in it even as she was drowning. Obi Wan too was deep in the dark side of the force.

Obi Wan explained to her that he had first fallen to the dark side of the force when she lost consciousness when hit by Magus's treacherous blaster. Palpatine himself found him on Azure in a cave in which he hid. There Obi Wan had become Palpatine's first Jedi convert since Dooku.

He had served Palpatine faithfully, acting as a spy on the Jedi Council. Feigning obedience to Yoda and Mace Windu even as he corrupted his own apprentice, the chosen one, Anakin Skywalker.

Until now. The last straw was when Palpatine betrayed him by attempting to take on another apprentice.

The only reason Siri was lying in an infirmary, Obi Wan explained, instead of feeding the worms beneath the earth along with the rest of the Jedi, was because, as he sees it, Sidious had told her his last secrets when he whispered in her ear.

He was about to execute her with his lightsaber when she abruptly sprang from the med bed and devoured him.

Later, when they laid together in the Emperor's main bedroom two days later, right after the slaughter in the senate house, she would confess that she did not know where she got the power to launch off the med bed like she did. After all, two days later, she just received a pair of cybernetic lower limbs after the amputation.

After the first two years, she realized something. When she asked him about it, Obi Wan said that he had known for a long time.

They had always slept on the same bed after they were married. It had never changed after twenty-three years, except when he was away performing the duties of an Emperor.

But whenever he was away, and she wanted to follow him or track him, she was always attacked with a wave of lethargy. After a moment of brief determination, all she wanted was to go back to sleep.

It has been like that every time. And this time, she was surprised. For once in more than two decades, she could feel the force on her own, without him being present. She could finally see what her face really looked like after all these years without a drone in the back of her head telling her to go back to the bed and sleep.

She hadn't been able to find anger in so long. Anger to fuel the dark side. She never once considered using the light. What help could the light offer when the awesome power of the dark side was helpless?

She surprised even herself when she found her ire. Obi Wan had kept things from me. The rebels at Sullust must have distracted him just long enough and just strong enough so that his hold on me is weakened.

Siri mentally summoned Shira Brie, one of her handmaidens. One of Obi Wan's spies on me. She corrected herself. She will pay soon enough.

She was able to sense the woman's annoyance, then wonder, then full blown panic. The frightened signature was obviously trying to flee.

Siri squinted her eyes. Have to be more subtle. Kriff, they won't dare come to me. I'll have to go to them.

She quietly walked from the bedroom and entered the throne room. Someone had left in a panic. Hm... They seem to be very scared of me for some reason. I wonder why. Siri's blue eyes burned green for a moment. Obi Wan. You're going to pay.

Suddenly Siri shivered. She realized then that she was in nothing but a simple tunic. Have to get a robe. Have to get a robe.

A tiny sob attracted Siri's attention. A small figure was trying to hide behind the throne. A small bare foot was out in plane sight. It shook momentarily before trying to withdraw into the shadows. Too late. Siri mused.

Thinking the figure to be a small girl, Siri was mildly amused to find a grown woman of close to thirty years old. The woman had black hair and black eyes. The eyes were wild and darted from side to side.

Aside from her wild features, there were nothing too much distinguishable about the woman except that she was dressed in a simple Alderaanian peasant woman's work cloth.

As Siri stared, the woman screamed: "You'll never turn me to the dark side! Never!" Before Siri considered a retort, the woman jammed her right thumb into her mouth and sucked violently. Blood flowed from the corner of the mouth as the woman began to chew.

Oh great a delusional. Even if anyone could convert her to the dark side, I doubt he would take the trouble. Wait. Siri closed the distance. "Say, that's a nice and warm dress."

Five minutes and a delusional woman put out of her misery later, Siri walked into the lift with a phrix force pike. The lift began moving down as it detected a sentient.

Damn, this dress is two sizes too small. I wonder when and where I can get another. Thinking for a few moments, Siri decided that one of her former handmaidens, Mara Jade probably had the same size as she. Concentrating, Siri tried to find Mara. Sorry girl, but my comfort right now is more important than your life. You'd understand. Siri failed to find Mara, but found the presence of half a dozen royal guardsmen and a few Obi Wan's female spies running for all their worth toward a room deep below in the basement of the palace.

Neither the lift nor the throne room had a mirror. Siri was getting desperate to see what was it that scared everyone around her. Maybe without Obi Wan's masking, she was a freak. And then there was the fact that she had overcome her lethargy when the Emperor was absent. If the servants were freaked because her face is deformed, she will have to replace them. If the servants are frightened because they were meant to keep an eye and control her when Obi Wan went out, she would have to replace Obi Wan.

She burst into the first room on the floor to find a mirror, any smooth looking surface that might cast a reflection. Nothing. The next room, nothing. And so on and so fourth, until all the rooms on the floor were searched, but nothing came up.

She tried the next floor down, and the next, and the next, until she lost track of the number of floors. Disoriented, she paused, and despair came in. She realized that in all twenty-three years that she inhabited the palace with Obi Wan, she had never seen a mirror, or a looking glass, or a particularly reflective smooth surface.

Obi Wan must have done something to me.

Let the hate flow through you. Siri hardened her frame. Time to get to work.

She still sensed two guardsmen and a handful of handmaidens in a room in the basement, but they were engaged in a battle. Against a foe that was at the same time terribly strange and oddly familiar.

The lift stopped two flights from the basement. It lurched violently before coming to a halt. Someone or something was forcing the door open. Siri braced herself.

A forty-year-old woman with black hair and brown eyes came into the elevator slashing both of her green lightsabers maddeningly in the elevator cabin. Going for Siri's stomach and her chest at the same time, the woman didn't use the traditional method of twin blade combat. Her aggressive stance came to a halt when the phrik force pike stopped both blades inches from Siri's body.

"Master Tachi?" The woman gasped. Deactivating one of her blades. "How?"

"Like this." Siri's move was lightning fast, the force pike found its deadly mark swiftly and silently. The Jedi Knight could have easily countered the move and surely would have destroyed Siri if she had both blades at her disposal, as it is however, Serra Keto's brown irises bulged in disbelief. Siri had withdrawn her force pike from the woman's throat so fast that no blood would sprout out of the fatal wound. Siri hated to ruin a good gown, particularly if she is to wear that gown soon. She quickly brushed aside the woman's remaining saber hand, which had subsequently dropped the hilt to the ground, and closed the distance between them. She gripped the woman's broken throat, and leaned her onto the cabin wall. Siri got close up to Serra and turned her cheek. She soothingly whispered.

"Shhh... It's okay. It's okay. It'll be over soon. I'll hold on to you, give you a little warmth as the force takes you. Would you like that? That's a good girl. Here it's a waste of energy to maintain opening those eyes. Let me close those lovely eyes for you. There is no death, remember? Don't try to breathe too hard. The air will leak away faster from your broken trachea. That's it. That's it. Good girl."

A second later, All that remained of Serra Keto was a single Jedi combat robe and two identical lightsabers.

"Thank you, Serra. You are a good friend."

When Siri came into the basement room, or more appropriately, the jail cell situated in the basement, she was wearing Serra's robes and sporting one of her lightsabers while tucking the other in her belt. She surveyed the dark room in front of her.

All of the handmaidens were done on the ground. Most were dead, but Shira Brie, whose legs have been cut off from under her, is still alive, but unconscious. One of the royal guardsmen was still battling a human shaped creature. The creature had white beard and moustaches so long, and along with his wildly carpeting hair, looked as if he sported a wolvkil's mane. In his hands was a blue lightsaber.

It's one of Obi Wan's prisoner. A rebel, no doubt.

The royal guardsman, a skilled warrior with a force pike, moved his weapon of choice in a mix of parries, strikes, pushes, and pricks. The prisoner seems very tired in contrast. He barely seems able to raise his arms as the guardsman in scarlet casually, with an upward motion, sliced open the prisoner's long flowing sleeve that was already in tatters before. The move simultaneously slashed open the prisoner's wrist. His saber dropped to the floor along with something else.

It was not the lightsaber or the prisoner, nor even the guardsman who was advancing menacingly on her that caught Siri's attention.

A piece of crystal. Something familiar. A warming crystal that once belonged to me. A crystal with a smooth surface.

She ran toward the crystal.

But someone was blocking her way. Without thinking she contracted her fists. She didn't hear the windpipe break or the body that fell.

Her eyes were on that piece of crystal. That surface. A face stared back at her. Her own. But it wasn't possible.

The man with a silver mane crawled to her side. And clutched her shoulders wildly. If Siri wasn't so numb she would have destroyed the man. Now, she just mumbled something.

"Can it really be you? But you are dead. I saw you die. I saw you fade into the force. Because I couldn't save you."

A hot liquid dropped onto Siri's neck. She turned toward the half wild man and pushed him roughly away. Somehow she stopped there.

"But I'm not thinking straight." Siri heard the man's voice. So familiar, like she only heard it yesterday. "Even if she were alive. She would have to be close to sixty now. You on the other hand..."

"I haven't aged a day, Obi Wan." Siri knew whom she was addressing all along. She just accepted it now. She had tried to make sense of the man through the force, and a faint light side's signature answered.

"No. This is a dream. Serra didn't lead Whie and Bene here to rescue me. That's not Whie and Bene lying dead there. Serra didn't go up there to stop some mad Empress. No this is a dream brought on by the hunger strike. Yes. I expect I'll be one with the force soon."

"I haven't aged a day." Siri was still mumbling. She touched the crystal.

The warming crystal I gave to Obi Wan on Azure. It must have kept him from the dark side even as he saw me die. The fool kept it all these years. Siri's blue eyes surrendered a stream of salty tears.

If that's Obi Wan hovering over me. Then who's the Obi Wan who went to Sullust to confront the rebels? Obi Wan could not have ended up here in this state in two hours. That beard growth, the horrid state of his robe, the scar tissues all over him. Obi Wan had been trapped here for years.

The Emperor removed all mirrors and all furnitures that could be used as mirrors to hide my aging, or lack thereof, why?

She must know. Siri hazily cut away at her legs, and stopped when she saw blood gushing out. She cut away at her left wrist furiously. All she uncovered were broken circuits as sensation on that hand went numb.

She cut away at her stomach with even more ferocity. Circuit boards were uncovered after the skin were peeled. She lost sight in her right eye.

She refused to believe it. She didn't want to believe it. She resumed cutting up her legs, the force pike quickly reached bone, that's when she knew it was all too real.

Siri Tachi, Empress of the Galactic Empire, Dark Lady of the Sith, is nothing more than a droid on two human legs. The artificial limbs that she thought was artificial was the only part of her that wasn't.

If Obi Wan is here beside me locked up as a prisoner, who's the man with whom she spent the last twenty-three years with? Who is the man coming inside the door?

She realized that she could not see her fingers in front of her anymore. Just like always when in his presence.

Oh force no. Please. No. Please.

She knew why the Emperor hides his handsome features. She knew why he hid her beauty.

If I only got Obi Wan out of here before it was too late. Why in nine Corellian hells I didn't ask the Emperor what happened to my padawan, Ferus Olin? If I only thought through his deception. I only noticed Ferus snooping a handful of times. I never dreamed... I should have figured it out long time ago. Maybe I did and chose to ignore the truth. For how could Obi Wan possibly fall to the dark side, just like that, for me?

It's too late now.